Page 213 of Onyx Cage: Volume II

Always when I was in a hurry. Always when I had socks on.

“You don’t have to glare at the floor, Evander,” she interrupted my thoughts, wrapping a towel around herself. “I’m going to dry it up.”

“History would suggest otherwise,” I reminded her, trying not to think about how many times we had argued about this very thing.

How I had expected to argue about it for years to come, not just on this single night we had left.

She didn’t deign to respond to that, shaking her head as she walked toward the small bag with her clothes. I intercepted her, tugging her toward the bed instead.

There was no sense in her putting on what I was going to take off anyway. No sense in wasting what limited time we had on trivialities like getting dressed.

Sitting on the bed, I pulled her gently toward me until she was standing between my knees, her face level with mine for a change. I drank in the sight of her perfect features, from her stubborn, pointed chin to the softest lips I had ever tasted, and up to the sparkling jade eyes that bore directly into my soul.

It seemed impossible that everything we had done and been had come to this. A handful of hours for a goodbye she didn’t know we were saying.

I had never thought much about an afterlife, but I hoped there was one now, and I hoped that Iiro would suffer when he found it, the way I would suffer when I left her.

Pressing my lips against hers, I explored her mouth slowly, letting her warmth seep into the ice that had settled into my veins, letting it wash over me and into me, infusing me with all the comfort I wasn’t sure I deserved.

But I had always been selfish where she was concerned.

I greedily soaked it in. Time ceased to exist while I mapped her skin with my fingertips and committed every inch of her to memory, savoring the taste of her on my lips and the feel of her body under mine.

I tried to tell her without words that she had been everything to me from the moment her verdant eyes met mine. That Iwould make every impossible decision over again, would endure a thousand lifetimes with Ava, for the chance of knowing her in every one and having this time together.

Belonging to her, as she had belonged to me.

CHAPTER NINETY-ONE

It took everything I had to pry myself away from Rowan’s perfect, warm body, knowing this was the last time I would ever feel her against me.

My life did not lend itself to easy decisions. Over and over again, I was forced to choose a path of just slightly less bloodshed, slightly less death, slightly less pain. So I took some small comfort in the fact that in this, at least, I had been able to choose life.

For her, at least. And that was enough.

I tucked the blankets in around her, keeping my arm around her shoulders until I could be sure she wouldn’t stir. Leaning in, I gave her one last kiss on her forehead before I silently gathered my clothes and crept into the adjoining room to dress.

She was a sound sleeper when she wasn’t having nightmares, but I knew she would wake soon after I left. That’s why I had waited until close to dawn. I had minutes, at best, until she stirred.

And if she woke up, I wasn’t sure I could find the strength to leave her. Would she talk me into abandoning my clan or risking her life?

Either was unacceptable.

This was the only option.

Still, my lungs seized, my entire body rebelling at leaving her this way, at leaving her at all. But I continued all the way to the hallway to where Korhonan was waiting.

To think that only a year ago I would have rather set him on fire than trusted him with my lemmikki’s life. But he had proven by now what he was willing to do for her safety—including sneaking behind enemy lines with nearly no protection—and he had managed it even among my own soldiers.

That didn’t stop my insides from churning at the idea of leaving her safety to anyone else, especially a man who thought he was in love with her. Nonetheless, I did trust him, at least when it came toher.

He walked toward me with his usual stiff posture, stopping several feet away.

“Thank you for coming.” It might have been the nicest thing I had said to him in years.

It was difficult to feel any ire toward the man who was saving Rowan’s life, at great risk to himself. Besides, I knew what it was to have someone you had looked up to turn out to be a monster.

For all the times I had wanted him to realize who his brother was, I couldn’t quite dredge up the satisfaction I had expected from it.