Page 179 of Of Nine So Bold

My eyes closed, a sad smile crossing my face even if he couldn’t see it. Always thinking, this incredible scholar. Always doing the right thing even if it cost him. “You’ll find a way to break it and keep us both safe. I have faith in you.”

“And the prophecy of the Nine?” There was a note of desperation in his voice. “Everything Ignatius said? What of that?”

“Perhaps it’s not what we think. Perhaps the prophecy counts Roan and the demon as two, and it was never meant to include you.” I let out a breath, clinging to my resolve. “Take your place in the Order, Byron. Please.”

I started toward the door again, my heart hurting. Niko must have been wrong on the math. That was all.

But regardless, I couldn’t ask Byronnotto be who he was.

I loved him for who he was.

“Roan and the demon,” he muttered behind me, my vampire hearing picking out the gritted words.

Before I could look back in confusion at the frustration in his tone, footsteps crunched on the debris. A hand caught my arm, turning me around.

“Do you want me to go, Gwyneira?” he demanded, a pained fury in his voice I’d never heard before.

My mouth moved, but there wasn’t another answer to give. “No. But you have your vows and I don’t want to cause you any pa?—”

He pulled me forward so fast, I couldn’t react.

And then his lips were on mine.

For a moment, shock froze me. But my body caught up faster than my stunned brain, moving my hands to his sides, blurring my thoughts with desire. Shock melted, turning into heat that rushed through my blood and bones and core.

Holy gods… Byron was kissing me.

His hands gripped my arms, holding me to him with such force it would hurt us both if I tried to pull away. But I had no desire for that.

Only for more of this.

Even if it violated everything he’d sworn to uphold.

The reality of that began chewing into my desire like a rot that was determined to destroy everything about this impossible, amazing moment. Because this couldn’t last.

It shouldn’t even exist.

That reality seemed to catch up to him too. Breathing hard, he broke from my lips, his body shaking. “I…” He cleared his throat with effort and released me, taking a step back. “I’m sorry, Princess. I shouldn’t have?—”

“Indeed.”

The voice came from beside us, sending ice shooting through my veins as Byron froze entirely.

Trembling, I turned.

Ignatius stood in the library doorway.

46

BYRON

Words failed me, leaving only a sensation of falling. Like, in an instant, I’d run straight off a cliff after suicidally concluding I didn’t need the ground after all.

And now as I stared at Ignatius, the taste of Gwyneira’s lips still on mine, I was left with only one truth—one so simple its description was worthy of Clay.

I was fucked.

“It’s not what you think,” Gwyneira said, fear and urgency in her beautiful voice. She knew what this meant, perhaps more viscerally than anyone else could, considering our shared memories. She knew what I’d just lost.

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