Chapter 32 #4
His eyes dropped to my fist. Then lifted to mine.
“You don’t get to do that.”
“Do what?”
“Tell me that and then shut me out again.”
His gaze held mine. “Lyra.”
“What?”
His hand closed around my wrist. Not to remove it. Just holding me there.
“You want to know why I keep things from you?”
“Yes.”
“Because I forget I’m supposed to.” The chamber seemed to disappear around us. “I forget what you’re supposed to know. I forget what I’m allowed to tell you.” His voice lowered. “Half the time I’m with you, I forget there was ever supposed to be a line between us.”
My pulse thudded painfully. His gaze dropped to my mouth. There and gone. Except I saw it.
“You don’t trust me,” I said, but there was almost no accusation left in the words.
His eyes came back to mine. “That is not the fucking problem.”
“Then what is?”
Another tremor moved beneath our feet. Neither of us looked away.
Finally, he said, “I trust you too fucking much.”
Oh.
For one second, I forgot the room was collapsing.
Kieran’s fingers remained around my wrist. My fist was still twisted into his shirt.
Blood dried beside his temple. His gaze dropped to my mouth and stayed there.
I became aware of everything at once. How close he was.
How easy it would be to close the remaining distance.
Neither of us moved. For once, Kieran wasn’t hiding what was happening inside him.
I could see every reason he thought this was a mistake.
Every consequence. Every instinct telling him to put space between us while he still could.
His hand lifted. Stopped. Then the backs of his fingers touched my cheek. Such a careful touch from a man who had rarely been careful with anything. It nearly undid me. “Kieran.”
His eyes closed for half a heartbeat. When they opened, whatever had been holding him back was gone.
He kissed me.
Not softly. He kissed me like he had spent weeks furious with himself for wanting to. My back struck stone and for one stunned heartbeat I forgot to move. Kieran Nyxara was actually kissing me. Then his mouth moved against mine again and thought became considerably less important.
I grabbed his shirt with both hands and pulled him closer.
A rough sound left him, low enough that I felt it more than heard it.
One hand slid into my hair. The other found my waist. I opened my mouth beneath his and whatever remained of his restraint disappeared with it.
I kissed him like I was angry too. At every almost. Every retreat.
Every time he had looked at my mouth and decided he shouldn’t.
At him for making me want this. At myself for wanting it anyway.
My fingers tangled in his hair and he pulled me flush against him until the last inch of space vanished.
His mouth slowed, somehow making it worse rather than gentler.
His thumb pressed beneath my jaw and tipped my face where he wanted it.
Then he kissed me again, deep enough that my knees became an unreliable part of my anatomy.
My Light flickered beneath my ribs. I ignored it.
His mouth left mine. Barely. I followed without thinking.
Kieran stilled. So did I. Our foreheads nearly touched.
His breathing was just as uneven as mine.
For once, he looked every bit as ruined as I felt.
His gaze dropped to my lips. “You kissed me.”
A breath of laughter touched my mouth. “That is generally how this works.”
“This is a terrible idea.”
“The worst you’ve had yet.”
“That’s impressive.”
“Your standards are low.”
There he was. I almost smiled. Then his thumb dragged across my lower lip and the smile vanished. “You’re doing it again.”
“What?”
“Looking at me like that.”
His gaze lifted. “Like what?”
He knew. Bastard.
So I kissed him.
This time Kieran froze. Only for a heartbeat.
Then his hand closed around the back of my neck and he kissed me back hard enough that the first kiss suddenly felt like a warning.
This one was mine. I rose onto my toes and pulled him closer.
Shadow curled around my ankle. His. My own slipped free in answer and climbed along his wrist. Kieran’s breath caught against my mouth.
Neither of us stopped. His darkness wound around my waist. Mine threaded through it without resistance, moving as though neither knew where one ended and the other began.
Then heat bloomed beneath my ribs.
My Light answered.
“Kieran—”
Gold flashed between us. He tore his mouth from mine. Light spilled over the hand still holding my waist. My Shadow curled through his. His threaded through mine. Gold slipped between both.
Silver ignited where all three touched.
The chamber went silent. Not quiet. Silent. The grinding stone stopped. Dust hung in the air. Even the low vibration beneath my feet vanished.
Kieran looked down. Then at me. “What did you do?”
“Me? You’re covered in my Shadow.”
His gaze dropped to the darkness wrapped around his forearm. “That seems worse.”
“You wield Shadow.”
“Not yours.”
A violent impact erupted beneath us. Once. Deep enough to shake through my bones. Another blow followed.
Every conduit in the chamber ignited at once. Gold tore up one wall. Black ripped across another. Then the lines crossed. Not beside each other. Through each other.
Silver exploded through the chamber.
The floor split. Kieran caught me around the waist as the fissure tore directly beneath us. Stone dropped into darkness. We jumped. The ruined platform collapsed behind us. The chamber screamed. Actually screamed. A sound like metal dragged across bone tore through the foundation.
“What did we do?”
Kieran grabbed my hand. “I think you kissed me.”
“I am going to kill you.”
“Later.” A section of ceiling crashed behind us. “Run.”
We ran. The sealed entrance shuddered ahead. Gold and Shadow raced toward it, his and mine tangled so completely I could no longer tell which belonged to whom. They struck the door together. Stone dropped several feet, stopped, then began rising again.
“Go!”
I hit the floor and slid beneath it. Stone tore through the shoulder of my sweater. I rolled into the corridor and spun. “Kieran!”
He dove after me. The door dropped. His boot caught.
He swore. I lunged forward, caught his forearm with both hands, and pulled.
His heel tore free a heartbeat before the stone slammed shut.
The impact threw us together. For half a second, I was sprawled across his chest. His hands landed automatically at my waist. We stared at each other.
His mouth was inches from mine. Again. “You have got to be fucking kidding me.”
The ceiling cracked.
Kieran rolled us aside as stone crashed where we had been. “Definitely later.”
He grabbed my hand and we ran. We didn’t stop at the next junction.
Or the one after that. We ran until the screaming chamber had faded into a distant groan and the only things I could hear were our boots against stone and my own breath tearing through my lungs.
Kieran stopped first. I nearly ran into him. “Warn me next time.”
He braced one hand against the wall. “I’ll schedule it.”
I bent forward and tried to convince my lungs that death was no longer immediate.
My hands shook. My knees weren’t much better.
When I finally straightened, Kieran was looking at me.
I made the mistake of looking back. His hair was a disaster.
My fault. Blood had dried beside his temple.
His mouth—I stopped there. His mouth was red.
Also my fault. His gaze dropped to mine.
My lips still burned. Apparently nearly dying had done nothing useful for either of us.
The Codex chose that moment to whisper.
At last.
I closed my eyes. “Fuck off.”
Kieran’s brows lifted. “The Codex?”
“Yes.”
“What did it say now?”
“I will throw myself back into that chamber before I tell you.”
His mouth curved.
I pointed at him. “Don’t.”
That only made it worse. Not his usual smirk. A real smile. Brief and crooked and so unexpectedly young that I forgot what I had been about to say.
Then a deep groan rolled through the foundation. The smile disappeared. Reality returned all at once. The chamber. S-17. The unnamed Shadow wielder whose identity someone had tried to carve out of history.
“It reacted to them too.”
Kieran followed my gaze.
FOUNDATION RESPONSE CONTINUES WHEN BOTH SUBJECTS ARE PRESENT.
Twenty-two years ago, the foundation had awakened for an Aurora candidate and a Shadow wielder someone had wanted separated from her.
Tonight, it had awakened again. I carried Light.
I carried Shadow. The foundation had recognized both before Kieran ever touched me.
But recognition had not opened the door.
It had not stopped the walls. And it had not turned those ancient channels silver.
I looked at Kieran. He was already watching me. Neither of us said it. We didn’t need to.
The chamber hadn’t awakened for my magic.
It had awakened for us.