When I rejoined the party, I finally caught a glimpse of Jase. He was on the far side of the garden near Darkcottage, immersed in a conversation with two older men. His black shirt made his blond hair brighter, and his cheekbones still bore the warm polish of our long trek in the sun. I watched him as I walked closer and noted what I had seen already today, the way he commanded attention. It wasn’t just because he carried the title of Patrei. There was a presence about him, an intensity that was both sobering and alluring. He was tall and his shoulders wide, but it wasn’t his stature that stopped people. It was more about the angle of his head when he looked at you, the lift of his chin, the awareness in his eyes, the way you could see thoughts spinning behind them, like a tailor measuring before he cut the cloth. There was precision in his stare, and that precision could slice right through you like diamond shears.
I don’t need an outsider, much less a Vendan, to tell me the right thing to do.
His head turned as if he sensed someone watching him. From far across the garden, his eyes met mine. He didn’t smile—he offered no expression at all—but his gaze lingered, and then he said a few quick words and left the man at his side, making his way toward me.
A flutter skipped through my ribs. I was still uncertain about our parting today. He had left abruptly, and the kiss I had meant to control had felt like anything but a show.
“Jase,” I said when he stopped in front of me.
He stared at me, his jaw tight, a vein raised at his temple, and then he reached out and grabbed my hand. “We need to talk. Alone.”
He pulled me along, his pace feverish, and I felt the increased pressure on my ankle as I worked to keep up. Had he found out something about me? Discovered the drops of blood in the tunnel? We hurried along the shadowed side of Darkcottage.
“Jase, what are—”
But then he suddenly pulled me into a dark arched alcove. He swung around, his arms braced against the wall on either side of me.
“What is it?” I asked.
Even with darkness concealing us, I saw the dampness that glistened on his brow. A storm gusted through his eyes that I didn’t understand. He swallowed and leaned closer. “I want to kiss you, Kazi,” he finally said, his voice a whisper. “And I want you to kiss me back. But this time I don’t want it to be because we’re only making the best of it. And I don’t want a kiss that’s for show or has any conditions. I want you to kiss me just because you want to. Because you deeply want to. No one’s watching now. You can walk away, and I won’t say a thing. I promise, I won’t ever bring it up again.”
My breaths stopped up in my chest. He knew I had kissed him willingly today, but there had been conditions. Everything about us was so confused. It wasn’t a kiss he was looking for, no matter how true and heartfelt. He was searching for a clarity that couldn’t be ours. “Jase, I’m a soldier in the Vendan army. I—”
“I’m not asking you to be anything else.”
“In a few weeks, I’ll be leaving. When the settlement—”
“The settlement may take more than a few weeks. And I could make the rebuilding last a very long time.”
His eyes drilled into mine, searching for something clear, sure, and simply delaying the rebuilding wouldn’t give it to him.
What is this, Kazi? What is this between us?
The question was still there, but its thrum had grown louder. Coals burned in my stomach. I still had no answer, or maybe I simply didn’t want one. “I have to go back, Jase. We only have a short time—”
“A lot can change in a few weeks, Kazi. Plans can change. There are no guarantees. We could all be dead.”
I was intimate with destinies being yanked and pummeled and turned inside out. I knew about being thrown down unexpected paths. But Jase dead? Not him. His presence was too full, too felt, too—I shook my head, rejecting the possibility. It was just his father’s unexpected death weighing on him.
His shoulders pulled back and his hands slid from the wall back to his sides, releasing me as if he had received his answer. An angry tic pulsed in his neck.
I have no answers, Jase! I screamed silently. Not for this!
He started to turn away, but I hooked my finger onto his belt, stopping him.
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He paused, his nostrils flared, waiting and wary.
“A kiss will not make all of our differences go away, Jase. It won’t—”
“I’m not expecting our differences to disappear!” he hissed. “I’m just asking you to be honest about this one thing! Would you stop thinking about tomorrow or a thousand days from now! In this moment, what do you want, dammit!”
I looked at him, unable to speak.
My heart hammered wildly. Pivot! Steady! Blink last! My rules tumbled in a freefall. I felt him pulling away again, and I gave his belt a harsh tug, drawing him to a standstill. My gaze locked onto his, and everything inside me split in different directions. “Yes, I want to kiss you, Jase Ballenger. Not for show or to make the best of it. I want to kiss you because I want you, every part of you, even the parts that infuriate me beyond telling, because you’ve infected me with a poison that I don’t want to flush out, because you’re a mad viper twisting around my middle, cutting off my breath, yet I want you more than I want to breathe. Yes, Jase, I want to kiss you, just because I do, but the one thing I cannot do is promise you any tomorrows.”
He stared at me, and I could see every word I had spoken passing through his eyes. He measured them, turned them over, rejected and absorbed them. Finally his shoulders eased down a fraction of an inch.