Chapter 56—Terra

“I thought I'd show you what the blacksmiths have done," Kahn says. "After last night, they all volunteered to work through the night. They've made ten thousand barbed metal shards. They're as lightweight as they could make them, but still provide the width to pierce a heart and kill quickly. I think they knew it might make the difference between our survival and our demise.”

“It couldn't have been that close,” I say. “You're all trained fighters.”

“Before you turned the force back, our scouts reported that Devlin’s force was nearly forty thousand strong. Our soldiers would have been demolished. Unfortunately, they're regrouping. They've been working on methods to counteract your attacks.”

“I'm not sure why anyone's grateful to me, since the entire attack's my fault in the first place.”

Kahn stops walking and turns a few feet to his left. He pulls me into an alcove, probably so no one will overhear our conversation. But my heart races like he’s pulling me to the side to be alone with me. To press himself against me. To touch my face. To run his hand down the side of my body and press his palm against my hip. I inhale deeply to dispel my feverish thoughts.

Focus, Alora. Stop letting the stupid exordium melt your brain!

Kahn releases my hand and leans against the stone. “You're the subject of a prophecy. This attack is no more your fault than the rising and setting of the sun. Anyone who blames you for it, or any other issues that misguided idiots around you cause, is a fool.”

“I can't change the prophecy,” I say. “And I can’t be other than I am.” I look at my feet. “But I’ve been thinking about this.” I look up into his eyes.

His gaze doesn’t waver.

“If I surrender, no one else has to die.”

Kahn's jaw tightens. “They'll kill you.”

“Maybe they should.”

Kahn slams his hand against the stone above my head and slowly lowers his face to mine, almost as if he can shield me from all attackers. “I won’t allow it.”

I should be furious that he wants to dictate my actions. I should slap the possessive look off his face. I should shove past him and march back to the main path.

I don’t do any of those things, and I’m surprisingly not mad. In fact, there’s no fury inside me at all.

Mostly I feel melt and tingly and warm. I’d love it if he kept lowering his head. . .and lowering it. And lowering it. Until our lips finally touched. If I feel this way having him near, how will I feel when we kiss?

“You won’t allow it?” I don’t smile, but my eyes slant upward, toward his.

“No. And I’m your commander, so you have to listen.”

“You would’ve handed me over the day we met.”

“I was an idiot.” Kahn brings his other hand up against the wall, effectively surrounding me with his body.

Something in my belly flutters. Heat spreads from my chest into the rest of my body, and I inhale and exhale quickly to try and snap out of it. I can’t waste time here, ogling Kahn, no matter how wonderful it feels.

I have a brother to save and a war to win. “Jesse,” I manage to whisper. Like the name is a shield. Like it’ll protect me from all the things I feel when I’m too close to Kahn.

His brow furrows. “What?”

“My brother. He’s Wasting.”

When Kahn frowns, when the corners of his perfect lips turn downward, my fingers itch to touch them. To see whether, with my touch, they’d curl up into a smile. I want to repair everything wrong in his life. “You can't possibly blame yourself for that. No one knows the cause. It happens every day.”

He doesn’t point out that it can’t be stopped, because everyone already knows. “I’m cursed. It probably is my fault, somehow.”

Kahn’s head dips incrementally closer. In spite of my resolve not to be distracted, my heart hammers inside my chest. I long to close the space between us. “My parents both died of the Wasting on the same day. Do you think that was my fault? I was eight years old.”

I gasp. “Of course not. I'm so sorry.”

“It took me years to learn something, and I want you to listen to what I learned. Not everything that happens to us is our fault—some things are out of our control. You've done everything you can to make things better, to help, and to learn from your mistakes. That's all anyone can do.”

I open my mouth to thank him, but the words don’t emerge. Kahn’s face is too close, his lips only inches from mine. His eyes widen, noticing my eyes on his mouth, and he smiles. He’s always been almost painfully handsome. His jaw and his nose—the slopes, the angles—they’re like an angel from a painting. His eyes are like ice, but alive. They’re silver and blue and white all rolled together. His hair shines like the sun—and his lips. Full, wide, and mischievous. Strong.

I could have walked away. I could have thumbed my nose at fate and destiny and Mother Terra.

But when Kahn smiles, it’s just for me. It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.

And it’s too much.

As if he can sense the dissolution of my resolve, his head dips lower still. One of his hands drops from the cool stone to cup my face. He angles my mouth upward, gently, and his other arm reaches behind my back to pull my body flush against his.

I melt against him, his lips barely brushing against mine, and he groans, deep in the back of his throat. My hands take hold of the collar of his shirt, like I’ve imagined doing dozens of times, and pull him down.

More. I need more.

Kahn knows exactly what to do without being told. His lips press harder, his hands clasp tighter, and the fluttering in my belly transforms into a thrill that spirals throughout my entire body. The world melts away.

Until I hear a voice, as if from far away.

“Unit Leader? Excuse me, but there's a disturbance at the front gate.”

I pull back so fast I knock my head against the stone. The soldier standing behind Kahn looks at the ground. When he glances up at me, his eyes are round as saucers.

Kahn growls. Honest to goodness, he sounds like a feral wolf. “Tell Jesse. He's in charge of the gate.”

The words penetrate our brains at the same time. Obviously Jesse isn't up to handling the gate, not now. Kahn closes his eyes, pained at his slip, and turns to follow the soldier. I follow close on his heels. We reach the front of the enclosure just in time to see it. A piece of parchment, curled into a roll, floating ten feet in the air, about a dozen paces from the gate.

I reach out and tear it away from whomever Lifted it over. There isn't much resistance. I bring it over the gate and drop it into Kahn's outstretched hands.

He starts to unroll it, but I reach out a hand to stop him. “Shouldn't we take this to my dad?”

“Yes.” He lets it go, and it curls back up. He shakes his head like a dog after a bath. “I'm not thinking straight right now.”

His half-smile is. . .the smile of a co-conspirator. I’m in on it—it’s a smile for us, and that thought nearly breaks my brain.

He takes my hand before turning to walk back to the castle, and I don’t even stop him. I’m done fighting it, whatever this is. When we pass the alcove we just left, my heart thudding a little too fast, Kahn spins me into the small sheltered enclosure again, and this time he backs into the wall. I slide my hands against the stone on either side of Kahn’s massive body. I don't have time to notice much else before Kahn's full, eager lips press against mine.

Stone and war and soldiers and Terra and armies all fall away. Nothing is wrong, and everything is right. And the only things holding me inside my skin are the points where his body touches mine. My mouth, my hip, and my cheek where his hands rest. My mind, for once, is blessedly blank, and my heart is full. His arms drop and then circle my waist, and I pull him even closer, his lips soft but insistent.

Without warning, he moves me backward, only an inch or two. He breathes the words against my mouth, almost like he’s saying a prayer. “I have no idea what this scroll says. I don't know what will happen in the next hour, much less tomorrow, next week, or next year. But I needed to do that again while I still could.”

I tighten my arms around his waist, meaning to pull his lips back down, but I bump my arm against his side and the pain that flares as a result brings me back to the present. I have a riddle to puzzle out, and not much time left in which to do it.

“I’m sorry I fought it for so long.”

“So long?” His grin is all masculine pride. “Those three days felt like forever, but I would have waited as long as it took. You’re worth any wait.”