Page 99 of Steel Heart Iron Claws

His hand quirks, involuntarily reaching for my hair, and a tiny whimper burrows out of me. I need this. His touch. His lips. I’m so starved for him that all the air feels sucked out of the room.

My eyes sink halfway, waiting.

His hand pauses a hair away from my temple, and he’s all around me, above and below and on all sides—and he finally lowers his hand.

I lean into his hold.

“Basten.” My whisper is desperate, yearning. I can’t stop myself from gripping his shirt in my fists, fingers coiled in the cotton fabric, silently urging him closer. “I missed you—gods, I missed you so much.”

He rasps, “I want this moment with you, Sabine. You have no idea how much I want it. From now until the damn sun sets over this earth for the last time. But I need more than just this, right now, with you. I need…ourpast. I need to know more than your name, and how gods-damned perfect your lips are, and how I would raze villages to have them on me now. Like they were onhim.”

My gaze skips between his eyes, not certain what exactly I’m searching for. Jealousy? Over Artain? Yes—there’s that. But the burn in his gaze goes beyond possessiveness. It goesto a place so deep I’ve never been there. It damn near reaches to hell and back.

My gaze drops to his lips, and my toes curl, poised to lift me up to close the distance?—

He pulls me infinitesimally closer. Our bodies press together?—

His head jerks toward the door. A beat passes. “Someone is coming.”

I cling to him harder. “Wait. Don’t go.”

“It doesn’t matter if I try to run—they’ll catch me either way. I drugged every guard from the holding cells to your door. Wouldn’t take a genius to figure out it was me. And your father? He’s going to be furious.”

“Wait. Let me explain to him.”

He grips my upper arm, such a meager drop of the fathomless pool of touch I crave. “Whatever happens, it was worth it. Just for this moment with you. Do what you must to stay in the fae’s good graces. I’ll find a way for us to speak again.”

He starts to pull away, and my bones scream at me to grab him, to keep him here, to wrestle him to the damn ground if I have to.

It takes the last drop of my strength to keep my hold on the bedpost.

“Basten?” I breathe.

“Little violet?”

“You will always be worth it. Worth the damn world.”

Chapter 27

Basten

Five days pass while I’m locked within four extremely annoying walls.

King Rachillon’s soldiers put me in the servants’ wing of Drahallen Hall, on the ground level of the Stormwatch Tower wing. The room is cramped, with a bed so short my feet hang off, a piss pot and a wash basin, and a high, barred window that looks out on the kitchen garden.

But hey, it could be worse.

I showed up here claiming to have a king’s blood but looking like a beggar, then pawed the king’s daughter. I guess if you can’t decide between putting your prisoner in the dungeon or a stateroom, this is where you choose.

They drew my blood, so now, it’s just a waiting game until the bloodtaster arrives to decide my fate.

I slide open the top dresser drawer and laugh at my paltry belongings. Rian’s Golath dime. A second shirt no cleaner than the one I’m wearing. The locket with Sabine’s portrait.

One piece of good luck? I remember in perfect detailevery second of my interactions with Sabine since coming to Drahallen Hall.

However Iyre’s magic works, only the memories from before she touched my temple are gone. Apparently, I can makenewmemories that directly involve Sabine. Which means I don’t need the locket anymore. All I have to do is close my eyes and summon her perfect pout, pupils blown with desire…

Oh, gods.

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