Nadia #2
For a long time, neither of us moved. My back stayed against the wall. My legs stayed around his waist. His face stayed buried against my throat, his breath rough against my skin. The cut at his ribs was gone beneath the smear of my blood, but I could still feel where it had been.
I would feel it for a while. Maybe forever. Good. Let the ache of it answer the mark Aldric had left on him, a reminder etched into my skin for the one carved into his.
Eventually, I lifted my head and found Enzo already looking at me. His mouth was scarlet from my blood. The gold in his eyes had banked but not disappeared. His hands held me as if he trusted me to tell him whether to stay or let go. That nearly undid me more than the bite.
My hands rose to cradle his face, thumbs brushing the warmth of his cheeks.
And he waited. Even now—still inside me, still breathing as though he had only just clawed his way back from battle—he gave me that impossible patience, that quiet, unwavering attention that asked nothing and offered everything.
It nearly undid me more than the blood ever could.
“You will never do that to me again,” I said.
His eyes sharpened.
I held his face harder. “You will never stand in a ring and make me watch someone open you up because the lesson requires blood.”
“Nadia—”
“No.” Tears stung my eyes before I could stop them.
I hated that. Hated the burn, hated the weakness of it, hated that my voice shook anyway as I kept going.
“I understood the lesson. I understood the politics. I understood the witnesses. I understood all of it, and I still spent every second on that balcony trying not to come through the shadows and rip his throat out with my hands.”
His thumb moved once against my thigh, a small, careful gesture that somehow felt far too careful for everything that had just passed between us.
“I know,” he said.
“No,” I whispered, fury fraying into something worse. “You think you do, but you don't. I won't survive it if you do that again.”
The words settled between us, heavy as stone and sharp as glass.
Something shifted in his face. A flicker.
A fracture. Enough to tell me I'd finally reached the part of him that existed beneath the prince, beneath the commander, beneath the strategist who always seemed to know the cost before anyone else.
Mate.
I hated that he made me see it. Hated that he could be prince, commander, weapon, strategy, and still have that one place beneath all of it where my fear could reach him.
Good. I wanted it reached.
“You listen to me, Lorenzo Aurelius Veyne.”
His eyes held mine.
“The same goes for you.”
He didn’t pretend to misunderstand. That was somehow worse.
“You don’t get to spend yourself in front of me,” I demanded. “Not for politics. Not for witnesses. Not because your blood makes a cleaner point than your words.”
His hands tightened against my thighs.
“You told me my breathing wasn’t optional,” I murmured. “Yours isn’t, either. The math goes both ways.”
For one breath, he said nothing.
“I’ve spent a century making sure no one could do this to me,” I whispered. “No one got close enough. No one mattered enough.”
“Nadia. Baby.”
“No.” I held his face harder. “I'm falling for you, you impossible, arrogant, self-sacrificing bastard, and I have no idea what to do with that.”
Enzo stilled in the way a blade did when it had found the exact place it was meant to rest. Then his hand rose to the side of my face, his thumb brushing beneath the mark on my cheek.
“I know what to do with it,” he murmured.
My breath caught. Stupid, traitorous lungs. “Do you?”
“Yes.” His voice was quiet. Certain. Entirely unfair. “You give it to me.”
The bond went silent, as though it, too, were listening and waiting.
“And what do you give me?” I asked, because apparently, I had chosen this moment to become the kind of fool who needed an answer.
His gaze held mine. “Everything I have. Everything I am.”
My fingers tightened against his face. “Enzo.”
“I knew I couldn't live without you the moment I gave you my blood.” His thumb moved once along my jaw, his gaze never leaving mine.
“Not because of the bond. Not because Fate decided it for me. Because from that moment on, every choice I made led right back to you.” His voice was low, steady, carrying the weight of a truth he'd held for far too long. “I tried to call it duty. Responsibility. Protection. But it was always you.” His fingers curled gently against my cheek. “You’re not alone in this. You never were.”
I went still as something in my chest cracked so sharply I nearly flinched.
“Good,” I said, because if I said anything else, I might actually cry.
His mouth moved like he might smile. I narrowed my eyes. It died immediately.
Wise man.
For one more breath, we stayed there—his body still holding mine against the wall, my hands at his face, the bond raw and open between us. And then, because apparently my emotions had decided subtlety was for other people, my vision blurred.
“Oh, absolutely not,” I muttered. A tear slipped free, anyway.
Traitor.
Enzo's expression softened, and somehow that hurt worse than if he'd stabbed me.
“Nadia.”
“Don't,” I said, laughing once through the crack in my voice. “If you say anything remotely sweet, I am going to completely lose it.”
His hand slid into my hair. “You already are.”
Another tear slipped free, and I hated everything.
I hated him. I loved him. The bond practically purred at the distinction.
“See?” I said. “Unbearable.”
His thumb brushed beneath my eye, catching the tear before it could fall any farther.
Then he leaned down and kissed me. It wasn't desperate or hungry.
It was quiet, deliberate, carrying the weight of a choice already made and never to be questioned again.
The certainty of it settled around me like a vow.
A small, helpless sound escaped me before I could stop it.
His other hand settled at my waist, holding me closer where I was still wrapped around him against the wall, my fingers sliding over the warm skin of his shoulders.
The bond flooded warm and bright between us, a rush of feeling so vast it seemed to fill every hollow place inside me. Relief tangled with affection, with devotion, with something deeper than either of us had been willing to name until now.
Home.
When he pulled back, it wasn't far. His forehead came to rest against mine, and the space between us remained threaded with everything we had finally laid bare. For a long moment, neither of us spoke. We didn't need to.
The world beyond the room faded into silence, its sharp edges softened by the simple miracle of being here together. There were still gods. Still monsters. Still impossible choices waiting for us beyond the door. But for now, none of them could reach us.
There was only the steady warmth of his breath against my skin, the quiet certainty in his touch, the bond humming between us like a living thing, and the love we were finally brave enough to acknowledge.
Just him. Just us. And for one perfect, fragile heartbeat, wrapped in the truth of what we were becoming to each other, everything was okay.
Then I remembered Aldric was in the dungeons, and the king was on his way. Because nothing said emotional breakthrough like an interrogation and imminent royal arrival.
I tapped his cheek once. “Get dressed.”
His brow lifted. “You dragged me here.”
“I healed you.”
“You yelled at me.”
“And fucked your brains out. You needed all three. Frankly, I’m considering adding it to my standard treatment plan.”