“You’re shaking,” I whispered.
“Adrenaline.” His arms tightened. “And fury. And–” He stopped. Pressed his face into my hair and stayed there for a moment. “When Kael told me you’d gone alone. When I felt your terror through the bond and I was twenty minutes away and there was nothing I could–” He exhaled. Something ragged in it. “I thought I was going to lose you before I ever really got to–”
He didn’t finish. He let it sit there, unfinished.
I understood it anyway.
“I’m okay,” I said.
“You’re not.” He pulled back and looked at me with those silver eyes that had never once pretended to be anything other than exactly what they were. “And you don’t have to pretend. Not with me. Not ever.”
Something in my chest cracked open at that.
Not broke, but opened. The way something locked for
