Page 32 of Of Flames and Fallacies

Hesitantly, I pull Daeja out from my hood and set her on the ground. She sniffs around the room, inspecting every corner. She finally jumps up onto the bed, wiggles her way underneath the sheets, and stills as she slips off into sleep again.

I turn back to Cole. “We can’t afford to stay here long-term. What do you propose?”

He nearly flinches at the word propose. Perhaps our history had a much heavier effect on him than I could possibly imagine.

The glowing amber of his eyes swirl with pain and regret before it fades, and he responds mechanically, “I don’t have an immediate answer. I’d need a couple of days to figure out a plan. Maybe even get a map—”

I saunter over to him. His cream-colored sleeves are pushed up to reveal chords of muscle lacing his forearms. As I get closer and closer, his fingers flicker to life.

I pause a step away from him. But the fidgeting doesn’t stop. Hesitantly, I reach for his hand and wrap mine around his, stilling his quaking fingers.

“Cole…” I whisper. “I’m so sorry for that day in the forest.”

He shakes his head, biting his lip as he looks down at our intertwined fingers. “You have nothing to be sorry for. You were trying to save your mother. I’m sorry I didn’t go with you. I should have—”

“You were doing what was best for your family.” I smile sadly.

“But you were my family, too. I wanted a life withyou,” his voice dips low, and his eyes catch mine.

Were. Wanted. All the things of the past.My face falls, and he slips his hand out from mine. Digging between the layers of his shirt, he fishes out something metal. It gleams as the light fragments off it.

The necklace with his mother’s ring.

He unclasps it from his neck and holds it in his palm. “I wore it every day after you left.”

An offering. A question. Perhaps he doesn’t hate me as much as I thought he might.

He swallows hard. “Kat, I—”

I crush myself into him, pressing my lips to his.

I love you, too.He doesn’t have to say it for me to know it or feel it.

He sighs into my mouth, easing into my embrace.

I cling to him. As desperate as someone would be for air as they drowned. Grasping, melting, holding. His hands find the sides of my face as he kisses me back. I press into him, shifting him back a few steps. His back thuds against the door, and something falls to the ground with a‘clink.’He pulls away from our kiss and drops to a crouch to pick up the ring he dropped.

He kneels in front of me, eyes flicking up at me. His mother’s ring in his hand.

This is the moment—this is it.

Something shuffles outside, and he frantically pushes back up to his feet, shoving the ring into a pocket. His chest rises with exaggerated breaths, and his eyes round.

His throat bobs as he swallows. “We have to be careful. Really careful, Kat. They can’t know you’re not my sister. There’s so much at stake. There’s so much we have to figure out—it…it doesn’t mean I don’t want to—” He’s fumbling for words, bracing himself against a wooden post as he shuffles backwards away from me.

I can’t tell if he’s spooked or if he’s fighting himself to keep from ripping my clothes off.

“Okay,” I breathe, ghosting a touch on his hand with a smile. As if I were calming a wild animal. “It’s okay.”

The tension in him lessens.

With a sad smile, he gazes down at our hands, now laced together. “The past few months I’ve been worried for other people: my family, my squad, the towns. But since this morning I’ve only been able to think of one person. You. I’m worried about you. Because if something happens to you…I won’t be able to survive it.” He flicks a look up at me. “Not again.”

I rest my other hand on his cheek. “Nothing’s going to happen to me, Cole.”

It’s all I can think of to answer him.

Even if I can’t promise it.

---