“This is the only other place in the forest the jinn won’t go,” he says. His cabin.

The door is not locked—for no human would come so far into the Waiting Place. Once we are inside, Elias scrapes tinder against flint, and the barest glow bursts from the fireplace. When the flame is higher, he lights four or five lamps before turning to me.

“You need dry clothes.” He opens a chest near his bed and rifles through it until he finds a soft black shirt.

I set my scythe down beside Elias’s weapons and change in the washroom, stripping my sodden clothing and toweling off. I am thankful there is no looking glass. His shirt is far too big on me, and my hair is a disaster, the dozens of pins I used to tame it this morning tangled in one big mass. It will take me ages to pull them out. I sigh, reach for Elias’s lone wooden comb, and step out.

The Soul Catcher has changed into dry fatigues and kicked off his shoes. He sits on a deerskin rug before the fire, warming his hands.

“You can sleep there.” He nods to his bed. “I’ll take the floor. At least you’ll get a good night of rest before tomorrow.”

Sleep isn’t what I had in mind, but I shrug and sit near him cross-legged. Ever so carefully, I begin to pull out my pins. The first few make me wince, so tangled that I’m worried I’ll pull out half my hair with them.

Elias looks over at me and I catch my breath. The fire tinges his brown skin a deep, beguiling gold, and his hair, dark and unruly, falls into his eyes. The cabin is chilly, but beneath his gaze, I am not. His regard does not feel like the regard of the Soul Catcher.

He shifts his attention to the pin in my hand and my ineffectual efforts to remove it.

“Let me.” He comes around and sits behind me atop a fat cushion, long legs stretched on either side.

I feel his hands in my hair, removing the pin with deft gentleness. I shiver, and he shifts closer, his chest against my back now. The scrape of his stubble on my neck is maddening, and I find myself knotting my shirt in my hands, then unknotting it. I am suddenly without words, my thoughts a jumble of desire and confusion and anger. Why are you so cruel? I want to shout at him. Why offer warmth and gentleness and your touch if you are so determined to be the Soul Catcher instead of the man I love?

But I banish those thoughts. I will not feel anger tonight. Nor fear. Only hope.

My body melts against his, and I tip my head back so it’s easier for him to reach the pins. He pulls out a particularly stubborn one, and I marvel that hands so big, hands calloused from holding scims and daggers, could so cleverly work the pins from my hair.

“Does that magic of yours extend to hair knots?” I murmur.

His deep, quiet laugh echoes through my chest. “Apparently. They seem very agreeable.”

“They must like you.”

He shifts back again, and though I want to protest the fact that I cannot feel him anymore, his legs press against mine in a way that leaves no doubt that I am not the only one whose heart now beats faster.

“That night in the desert, when I was leaving,” he says, his lips so close to my ear that I tremble, a thrill running down my body. “I did say something to you.”

He removes another pin. My shirt slides off one shoulder, and the hard muscles of his arm brush against it slowly.

“I said: You are my temple.” His voice is low and hoarse. I lean my body into his, unable to stop, desiring him with a soul-deep wanting that aches. His scent intoxicates me, and I inhale so that I might remember it always. Even as he carefully removes another pin, his hard thighs tighten against my hips. I feel him, all of him, enough to know that Soul Catcher or not, he wants me as badly as I want him.

“You are my priest,” he says. His lips brush my neck, and I’m not dreaming it. He pulls out the last pin. He threads his fingers through my hair, loose now, with great care. His touch on my waist is less patient—he pulls my body around until my legs are slung to the side, my chest pressed against his.

My hands fall to his hips, and I gasp and dig my fingers into them as he tilts my head back, as he skims his lips along the hollow of my throat. I want him. Skies above, I want him. More so because I can feel him holding himself back, feel his entire body thrumming with need.

“You are my prayer,” he says, and now his eyes meet mine, and I see the war in him. See him teetering between the Soul Catcher and Elias. Between duty and hope. Between the task thrust upon him and the freedom he so craves. I know what he is going to say next. I have heard him whisper his mantra many times, though never like this. But as he teeters between who he’s become and who he wants to be, I say nothing. You’re in there, I think. Come back to me.

“You are my release,” he whispers.

A breath then, a slice of time that will mark the before and the after of this moment. A heartbeat during which I do not know who will win the battle inside him or if our love is enough.

Then his eyes clear, and he is Elias Veturius, warm and beautiful and mine. I pull him to me, reveling in the feel of his lush mouth as I steal the words from his lips. I run my hands over the hard planes of his shoulders, his arms—it isn’t enough. I want more of him, all of him.

He yanks me closer, as hungry as I am, kissing me with the same dark heat, as if he knows that this night, our last night, our only night, will never come again.

LVI: The Soul Catcher

If Mauth objects to Laia and me being together, I don’t hear it. And if the duty-obsessed Soul Catcher whispers at me that I am a fool, I don’t hear him either. I lose myself in the feel of her lips against mine, her scent filling my senses. She pulls her fingers through my hair, trailing kisses from my jaw to the ridges of my shoulders.

Her nails dig into my back, and she bites me, gentle and forceful at the same time. I curse at the frisson of heat that grips me and push her away.

We have a battle to fight tomorrow. I have a duty to fulfill. This won’t end well.

“Laia—”

But she shakes her head, gold eyes fiery, and puts a finger against my lips. “You love me,” she says. “And I love you. And that is all that matters this night.”

She runs her hands down my chest, straddles me, and with one smooth pull, tears open the buttons of my shirt, defiance suffusing every move. Stop me, she dares. But I wouldn’t. Not for the world, and in seconds, I’m pulling off hers.

I marvel at the perfection of every curve, every muscle, every scar, every last inch of her, but I don’t have words for it, and she looks away, embarrassed, her arms rising to cover herself.

“Don’t you dare,” I say fervently. “You’re perfect.” She smiles then, the smile I dream about.

“That,” she says, “is the most gratifying look I have ever seen on your face.”

I pull her to me, grazing my teeth across her lips, and then down her neck, across the hard perfection of her collarbone and to the silk below.

Clothes—accursed clothes—we remove what is left, laughing as we do, and then, still atop me, she takes my hand, moving it to the sweetest part of her body, dropping her head back, her breath going shallow when I do as she wishes. I smile, inordinately pleased at watching her eyes flutter closed as she rocks above me, as she loses herself to her pleasure.

Her body shudders, and I nearly lose my control at the feel of Laia losing hers. When she is still again, she looks at me, ducking her head in sudden shyness, but I lift her chin. The light of the fire deepens her gold eyes, and they burn like embers.

I kiss her slow then, the way I’ve wanted to for so long. I take my time, savoring the fullness of her mouth, tracing circles on the smooth swell of her hips. When I move my lips down her body, I watch her face, the delicate shifts in her expression, the way her pulse flutters at her throat, rapid as my own.

But she moans impatiently, and the sound undoes me. I flip her onto her back, settling only a little of my weight on her. Her fingers lace through mine, and when I lift them over her head, she curves into me.

“Yes—”

“Laia.” I want her so badly that making myself slow down is torment. But I do not want to hurt her. I am Elias now, but tomorrow, and every day after, I must be the Soul Catcher again. “Are you sure?”

She answers by hooking her leg up around my hips and pulling me toward her until it is not her moving, nor me, but us. And though I want nothing more than to disappear into this moment, she breathes my name.

“Elias,” she says between her gasps, and I know she wants me to look at her. I hesitate, for if I do so, my heart will be bare. But love rolls off her in gentle waves, enveloping me, and finally I meet her gaze.