Page 63 of The Flame

The weight of his words, rumbled in that gravel baritone, filled me with warmth and gravity in the middle of these uncertain times. Our lives were in a constant state of flux, a never-ending shifting, but Roman was my stable ground. Jessie called me amazing, strong, but I only ever came close to that when Roman was by my side.

While Daniel and Roman caught up, I searched for an electric socket to plug the heater in and came up empty handed.

“It’ll do for tonight,” Roman told me. “It’s fully charged.”

“You didn’t use it in the apartment last night?” I looked at him properly, noticing the tiredness in his eyes. “How did it go with the heirs?”

“Cramped and disorderly.” He dropped onto the couch with a grimace, running a hand through his hair. “Boyden Otter is an unpleasant character. I kicked them out first thing this morning.”

“Is Kemerick okay?” Daniel asked.

Roman’s gaze swung to him. “They’ll all be fine. I took them to the Processing Center and handed them over to the Protectorate. I wouldn’t be surprised if they land themselves cushy jobs and apartments in Gardens. The Protectorate has always held strong alliances with the council.”

Daniel pulled a chair out from the table and sat back-to-front, his arms folded over the top rail of the back support. “Isn’t that a problem?”

“Not right now,” Roman said, and went on to explain about how the Protectorate was occupied with more urgent matters.

The bulging backpack held various tins of vegetable and noodle soups, produced in The Smoke and a familiar staple in Capra. My mother would never serve tinned soup at her table, but I’d never been that fussy. Especially not in our current circumstances. There was also a fat chunk of crusty bread, a jar of mulberry jam and a tin of hot chocolate.

It was a veritable feast. We ate dinner around the small table while the little heater chugged warmth into the bowels of the cabin. Roman had stopped by our Parklands cabin that morning, so he knew about the busted door. There wasn’t much to ransack, but he confirmed my letter was gone. We agreed that Geneva must, at the very least, suspect we’d all fled to The Smoke, which could explain the lack of barriers and door-to-door searches.

I filled him in about the other letters I’d written and Jessie, and he only asked me once, “Are you sure about Jessie? You trust her?”

“With my life,” I assured him.

There was so much to talk about, it was nearly midnight by the time we said goodnight to Daniel and pushed the pair of single beds together in our bedroom. I didn’t have pajamas with me and I wanted Roman’s body heat, not my sweatpants, so I pulled a T-shirt on and we snuggled up beneath the quilt.

I draped myself over him, my elbows digging into his chest, my fingers threading through his hair and my eyes locked on his. “I missed you.”

He shifted beneath me, his gaze heavy with desire, and then we were kissing, his firm mouth shaping mine, our tongues exploring, tasting, stroking delicious sensations along my veins. He took charge, rolling me over, his hands caressing every inch of my body while his lips worshipped my skin. His touch was velvet heat, spiraling hot shivers to my blood and melting into my bones.

“Roman,” I groaned, my fingers spearing into his hair, my hips arching to meet his.

He chuckled, a primal sound that rumbled deep in his chest, and kissed his way up the column of my throat. “I love you.”

And then time stopped, everything stopped, as he lifted his head to look into my eyes and nothing else existed in this moment. There was just Roman, just me, and the fire of desire breathing against my skin and the love pounding in my heart.

“I love you,” I whispered, and for some inexplicable reason, I felt a hot tear on my cheek.

He kissed the tear away and time ticked on again, our bodies tangling and craving as we touched, explored and possessed, consumed in each other.

Much, much later, as I lay with my cheek pressed to his chest, his arm wrapped around me, he said softly, “I met with James today.”

I rolled my head into the crook of his arm so I could look at him. He’d already told us that the wardens hadn’t been informed of the escape. For now, Geneva was definitely keeping the missing heirs under wraps.

Roman trusted the senior warden as much as I trusted Jessie. Also, his allegiance lay with the wardens. “Did you tell James everything?”

“Not in as many words,” Roman said. “I told him the heirs had escaped to The Smoke. He’ll inform the wardens.”

“Did you mention our involvement?”

“I didn’t have to,” he said. “How else would I know about the escape? Why else would the Guard bust into my house? James knows me too well. He drew his own conclusions and I didn’t deny it.”

“What will he do?”

“File a complaint against the Sisterhood, for a start. They busted down my door and trespassed in my cabin. That’s a violation of warden territory.”

That was so unexpected, I bolted upright. “Are you serious? I mean, I live there, too, and I’m a citizen of Capra. Doesn’t that give them the right to enter?”

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