Page 53 of Vow of the Shadow King

“Maybe he’s in the room?” I suggest.

Vor swiftly crosses to the door, tries the handle. It opens at his touch, and he pushes it wide, puts his head inside to quickly scan the space. “Not here.”

“Maybe . . .” I swallow, my throat thickening. Then: “Will you inspect the chamber for me?”

He draws back to give me a look. Does he know what I’m doing? Surely, he does. Surely, he can read my intention plainly in my face. But I offer only an innocent expression, all wide-eyed and blinking. His cheek tightens. Then, without a word, he steps into the room and begins a slow, methodical search, underneath and behind even the smallest bits of furniture—though what assassin he thinks might hide beneath my footstool, I cannot imagine—inside the tall wardrobe, the hearth, up the chimney.

I step into the room after him. Slowly, I shut the door behind me, taking care it should notthunkand draw his attention. My heart pounds. Heat pools in my gut, thrills in little bursts through my breast. Unaware of my turmoil, Vor steps onto my balcony to finish his inspection, parting the long curtains and vanishing through them. For a moment, I’m alone. Alone to think through what I’m about to do. Can I go through with this? Have I the courage? The will? Gods help me, I should have listened more closely to Alyndra! My father’s mistress had given me many pointed tips on the art of seduction. I’d been so distraught at the time, I’d not registered any of it. But maybe it will come naturally? If I only have the courage to begin . . .

Vor spends more time on the balcony than necessary. I can’t help suspecting he’s taken the opportunity to steady his own breaths, firm his own resolve before returning to face me. He reappears at last, pushes back the curtains, steps through, pulls the window shut fast behind him. Then he turns. Faces me. His expression is hard as stone, but his eyes are bright. Very bright and very pale by the low glimmer of moonfire on my hearth.

“There’s no one here,” he says.

Am I mistaken, or did his gaze flick ever so briefly to my narrow bed? If so, he looks away again almost at once and refuses to let his eyes drift that way again. Instead, he crosses the room in a few quick strides. His shirt was still too wet to wear when we left the gardens, so it’s tied around his waist, leaving his torso bare. Firelight catches and plays with the contours of his powerful, warrior’s body. He looks unreal, like some mythic and magical being.

My mouth goes dry. I lean back against the closed door. “Do you . . . do you think the young guardsman will return soon?”

Vor stops a few paces from me. His jaw is tight, his brow hard. “He may have gone to the infirmary. But he should have thought to send a replacement. I’ll have a word with that boy.”

“Don’t be too angry with him.” I put out one hand, lightly touch Vor’s arm. A thrill streaks through my fingers just at that barest contact. It’s terrifying. You’d think being carried in his arms would make me somewhat immune, but here in this room, in this low lighting, with that bed close by, everything feels so much more . . .alive.

Vor feels it too. His careful barriers quake with the sudden surge of feeling in his soul. He stares down at me, at war with himself. “That boy was meant to protect you,” he says, his voice rough and low.

I tip my chin up, exposing my long neck, the low cut of my neckline, the tight heave of my breast as my lungs struggle to draw breath. “Maybe I don’t need protecting.”

Vor’s gaze flashes downward before dragging back up to my eyes. “Nonsense. You’re in danger every moment you remain in this realm. Of course, you need protecting.”

“Maybe I can protect myself.”

“Can you?”

He draws a step nearer, looming and powerful and shadowed and dreadful. My heart rams in my throat, and my gods-gift roils with powerful bursts of emotion. I don’t know which of these feelings belong to me and which to him. It’s all one. All need. All desire.

I don’t mean to do it. Not exactly. But I reach out. Slowly, slowly, I place my palms flat against his chest, hard as stone, but warm and alive. “Yes,” I whisper, and flick my gaze up to meet his. “But maybe I don’t want to.”

His eyes glitter with dark fire.

Suddenly, he takes two lunging steps. I don’t pull my hands from his chest but let him push me up against the door. His fists plant on either side of my face, his arms framing me in a cage of strength. He stares down at me, his breath hard and hot on my face. Then he draws one hand down to rest a finger under my chin. His touch is featherlight, gentle, a sharp contrast to the look in his eye. His thumb trails across my mouth just before his fingers glide lightly down my throat to my shoulder, igniting my skin with bright sparks. He brushes his palm along my arm and finally lets it come to rest on my hip. His eyes are ready to devour me with their heat.

I stare at his full lips, so very near. “Kiss me, Vor,” I plead.

His teeth flash in the moonfire glow. “You know I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“If I kiss you again, I won’t be able to stop.”

“Then don’t stop.”

With agonizing slowness, he lowers his mouth to mine. But doesn’t touch. He angles his face, breathing me in, tantalizing me with the warmth of his lips so near and yet torturously withheld. I feel like a woman starved, ravenous and desperate. One of my hands slips from his chest to the back of his neck and glides up into his hair. I try to pull his face down to mine, to close that space between us. But he turns away. Conflict coils through his soul, equal parts red craving and cold black resistance.

Time is running out. I can feel the seconds slipping away. Too soon, too soon, we will be parted forever. I need this moment. I need him.Now.

“Vor—” I begin.

Then his mouth is on mine. Crushing me with the intensity of everything he’s feeling, fierce and hot as the core of the world. I melt into him, ready to burn up in that first kiss, to give myself over to the inferno. He tastes like fire and darkness and smoke, a heady combination that rushes across my senses. My fingers knot in his hair as his tongue slips between my teeth. He flattens me against the door, pins me under the great wall of his chest. The hand at my hip skates down my curves, then grips fabric, and pulls. He hikes my hem up higher and higher, until his fingers are underneath my shift, gliding up my hipbone, my ribcage. I whimper as his thumb traces the lower curve of my breast. So gentle. Too gentle.

I take his lower lip between my teeth and bite. Just enough to shock him, to make him draw back and stare down into my eyes. His eyes blaze, his swollen lips parted, panting. Slowly, they curve in a smile.

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