Page 158 of Nikolay

Her voice came soft, a little rough from sleep deprivation and crying and everything the day had demanded of her. Even so, I would have known that voice in a cathedral full of prayer.

I swallowed. “Did you?”

She nodded. “The other night at that damned compound.” She worried her lip. “I dreamed I found my way to you. Or maybe you found your way to me. I’m not sure which. Dreams are kind of sloppy with logistics.”

A laugh almost escaped me. It caught in my chest instead.

She kept moving until only a breath remained between us. “I remember trying to tell you things. Important things. Things I was too chicken to say while awake.” Her gaze searched my face as if she still required permission. “I told you how much I loved you.”

Something in me gave way so quietly I think only the Goddess heard it.

I lifted my hand to her throat first, because that was where terror had lived this evening, where my own mouth had nearly lost itself to blood and fury in the clearing. My fingers found the soft line of her pulse. Steady now. Alive. Maddie leaned into the touch with a trust I had done nothing to deserve until tonight.

“I did not deserve those words when you first felt them,” I said.

“Maybe not,” she whispered. “Still felt them.”

My thumb moved under her jaw. “And now?”

She held my gaze with a courage that humbled me. “Now I’m done pretending I don’t.”

I bowed my head, unable for one absurd second to bear the mercy of being loved by her so plainly. My nose found the curve of her neck. Heat lived there. Her scent struck me harder at that close distance, and a low sound escaped my chest before I had the vanity to conceal it. My hands went to the buttons of her blouse—simple work, quiet work, though nothing in me felt quiet.

I undid the first button. Then the next.

Her breath caught.

“I thought,” she said, then stopped when my mouth brushed the place just below her ear.

I closed my eyes. “Tell me.”

“I thought if I ever got you alone again, I’d say it better than this.”

“Better than the truth?” I pressed another kiss to the side of her throat, then another, my fingers continuing their patient descent. “I should like to hear how.”

A small shiver went through her. “You are entirely too good at distracting a woman.”

“I have had centuries of practice.”

“That is not as reassuring as you think.”

It almost made me smile. Instead, I opened another button and another until the fabric parted enough for my knuckles to brush warm skin. Her pulse jumped under my mouth. So did mine.

“In the dream,” she managed, “I got to you, and I told you I loved you, and you looked at me like—”

My mouth found the hollow where her neck met her shoulder. Her words broke.

“Like what, moya dusha?” I murmured against her skin.

She made a helpless little sound. “Like I mattered.”

I stilled.

Then I drew back just enough to look at her.

Every defense I had ever prized felt filthy in that moment. Not useless. Worse than useless. Cruel. To make a woman like this wonder whether she mattered. To take her bright, brave heart and answer it with caution sharpened into arrogance. I had done that. I would regret it until the grave took whatever remained of me.

“You matter so much to me,” I said quietly, “that I have behaved like a coward in the face of it.”