The chamber was hushed save for the faint flicker of firelight and the slow, deliberate beat of three hearts.
Aiden did not wait. He had learned that hesitation was death—on the battlefield, in courtly halls, and in chambers such as these. His gauntleted hand reached, swift and sure, closing around Shina's fingers before she had even realized what he intended.
Her breath caught.
The contact was small, simple. Yet in that single gesture, an entire world shifted. Her skin was warm, impossibly soft against the cold metal of his gauntlet. A flush spread over her cheeks, painting her noble poise in human vulnerability.
She looked up. And there, in the golden storm of his eyes, she drowned.
"Do you want me gone?" he asked, voice low, intimate, each word dropping like molten iron into her chest. "Do you never wish to feel again what you felt that night on the balcony?"
