43. Leni

“Do you think you only like me because I remember you?”

It’s not a fair question. Jumping ship from our line of his ‘what’s your favorite color’ and ‘Where do you want to go next’.

Anywhere you are.

Boring. Obvious.

He wanted to play the question game. No rules attached. Ha! As if I wouldn’t take advantage of that.

He stares at me, onyx eyes calculating, face unreadable, a master spy playing his game, unable to resist a challenge.

He’s no more spy to me than he is the faceless male, the Blackguard’s secret stealer, the miscreant, the villain, the abomination devoid of morals. He’s just …

Cross.

Mine.

The muscles in his hand flex infinitesimally around mine, just enough for me to register, and his throat bobs with the crash of the waves against the shore.

Last week, he caught me off guard when he found me huddled in the sand at dawn, offering his hand for a walk, claiming that sometimes in the first moments of the sunrise, he can’t find me because my hair is the exact azure as the sea and my eyes dazzle like the frothed foam on its surface. He insisted he needed to hold me tight for fear of walking into the sea to find me.

So now we walk each morning in the gradually warming sand, fingers intertwined, steps lopsided, both of us too distracted to admire Helios’s legion of fiery stallions streaking across the sky.

He hasn’t lost me yet.

I nudge him with my shoulder, heart rapping in my chest. “You already admitted your favorite color was pink. I can handle whatever your answer is here too.” I hope.

His mouth dusts the top of my head with a kiss, but tension lines his body. “Neon pink,” he corrects.

“Answer the question, spymaster.”

He stops in his tracks to drag his gaze over me, pupils spilling partway over glittering irises. His shadows roam across the sand like well-trained snakes trailing their master, undulating and snapping, revealing the extent of Cross’s restraint to keep from covering me in black to block my short PJ shorts and slinky satin tank top from the realm.

“No,” he states firmly.

Refusing to answer. Not good.

“That’s it? No?” I pop my hip to the side, picking up rounded green sea-glass and rolling it between my fingers. “Then cough it up. You owe me your pants for skipping that one.”

His eyes flare with heat, low chuckle tickling my skin as he pulls me closer, reminding me how many times I’ve wanted to ask and chickened out for a tumble with my spy instead.

Ignorance is bliss.

I lift my mouth toward his, inhaling his natural clean smell, and the lingering fruitiness from the clementine he peeled me for breakfast. “Think we’ll make it to the house this time?” I ask, arms wrapping around him, neck craning. “Or will sand become part of my genetic code?”

“You are the most tempting creature in the universe,” he offers silkily.

I can’t stop the smile, basking in the intensity of his gaze, even as a nagging feeling creeps in, reminding me of his rejection.

Ignore it!Don’t ruin this. I reach for his belt, fingers accidentally-on-purpose brushing against the soft cotton of his shirt, teasing the solid abs beneath.

Before I can venture further, he stops me with a husky voice and a firm grip on my wrists. “No,” he says definitively. “No to everything. No to your question and no to its implications.”

No?

Oh, that was better than hot syrup on—wait. “What? You don’t like me?”

“If you were to forget me every morning, Leni, I would spend every waking moment trying to make you love me half as much as I love you,” he confesses gravely, drawing my fingers to his mouth for a kiss. “I would forget to eat, forget to fight, forget to breathe if it meant seeing you smile. More and more, I think the entire universe needed to forget me just so I could remind you of who you are, and it makes every second of my loneliness worth it.”

Shock nearly buckles my knees. “Me?” I ask, heart thumping in my chest. “As in me now. Not me from before?”

“You. Now. But make no mistake, I’ll love you in this life and your next, and every one after that.” He’s half smug as he traces two fingertips along the writing on my cheek while his thumb scorches the seam of my lips. “I’ll love you in the lives you despise me, Leni, in the ones you choose Atlas, and in the ones you need solitude. I’ll love you and protect you and cherish any part of you that you’re willing to give, even if I don’t deserve any of it. I’d take it gladly, stupidly, happily. Greedily. But only if you gave it.”

His confession ignites an fire deep within me.

My flawed, fearless male, who lives and breathes for good and rejects any of it for himself. I crave his touch, melting into him, toes digging into the sand as I cling to a male of shadow and hope. “Do you ever think the Fates intertwine two strings? That there may be creatures destined to be together?”

“It’s all I believe,” he replies, certainty unwavering. “Why else would you and I have crossed paths? Why would I feel like my life was meaningless before you? Like I was searching for something I didn’t even know existed and you came, and the search stopped.” He cups my face in both hands, beholding me with a love that steals my breath away. “Some days, I still can’t believe you’re really here. That this isn’t some cruel dream my curse has concocted just to rip away from me.”

I hold onto his wrist, his curse as my chest clenches and rise to my tip toes to get kiss him. “I’m here. I’m real. And I love you with everything that I am.” Our pasts may be filled with more anguish than joy, but together we can endure anything, and will for each other.

His eyes heat, and in one smooth motion he lifts me against him, caging me into his chest, supporting me. I gasp as our bodies align, my skin prickling with awareness.

His voice is a dangerous purr that sends warm sparks down my spine. “Everything?”

I smile slowly, raking my fingers through his soft brown curls. “Everything. Take it, it’s yours.”

A growl rumbles through him and shoots straight into my heart. His head swoops down, lips seeking mine hungrily, devouring me in a blistering kiss. My knees go weak, my head reeling from his possessive touch and the heady taste of his mouth.

He breaks the kiss with a ragged breath, eyes dark and hooded. Curses the Gods. “We have an audience,” he murmurs.

I blink in confusion before noticing Atlas stalking toward us across the sun-kissed sand, features carved in stone.

Gradually, Cross slides me down his body, smile ratcheting higher and higher as I purposely grip every hard curve on the path down, wiggling at the hardest until I’m flat footed and peering up at him. “You’d really be fine if I wanted Atlas?” I check, glancing at the leader of the Blackguard as he stops ten meters away, hands folded neatly, clad head to toe in black, cold eyes raking across the horizon. Giving us our moment.

Big softy.

“If he’s who you desired, I’d make sure you’d get him.” The edge in Cross’s voice tells me he would do so with or without Atlas’s consent. And it really shouldn’t be endearing, the threat of execution to get a boyfriend. “Do you want him?” Cross asks, voice like gravel, a glare pinned on Atlas.

Jealous.

It’s a really, really good look on my spymaster. “No,” I assure him. “Atlas would burn the realm for the Blackguard.” I press my nose into Cross’s chest and inhale deeply, savoring his familiar scent before continuing. “You’d sacrifice yourself for the world.”

“For you,” he corrects.

“You’re a hero, Cross. With virtues brighter than Heracles and Perseus combined. Operating in shadows and having blood on your hands doesn’t change that. Monsters take and abuse and punish, monsters don’t feel guilt. You’ve always fought for what’s right. And it’s a battle I want to fight by your side.”

“It’ll be a war,” Atlas warns, closer but maintaining a distance, as if he’s very aware of Cross’s latest rise in possessiveness. “And it’ll to tear the realms apart before it ends.”

“I’m ready,” I declare, unwinding from Cross to wrap Atlas in a tight hug. He’s been away, minding his own curse while Cross and I have remained in paradise. Fitting how my best friend is willing to protect the love of my life at any cost. The Chire kisses my temple, hand floating respectfully above my spine, right where he’s written his own name in permanent ink, smashed in the middle of the rest of the Blackguard’s signatures.

My family.

“You’ll stay out of trouble,” Atlas demands. “And call me the moment you remember something.”

“I’ll call you when I want, lassie,” I retort playfully. “And you’ll sit, pop a scone, and relax when I do.”

He shoots me a glare even as his mouth curls into his usual cruel smile. “You’re right.”

I wind back into Cross, stepping under his outstretched arm and letting it drape over me, warm shadows splashing up my legs.

“What’s the status?” Cross asks.

I’ve given Atlas and Rune every known Phoenix I’d tattooed on my family tree, but it’s been impossible to find them. Rune guesses they’re going by new names. Still, he searches, and hopefully someone will get sloppy or lazy, or realize they aren’t better alone.

“Sin has a lead on a Phoenix,” Atlas says, expression hard. “No relation, But a start. Luke’s establishing a base in Atlanta, and we’re moving in as support.”

“Do you really think they’ll find one?” I ask, twisting to face Cross. “Without us, I mean? If anyone could track one down, it would be us.”

“There’s a bounty for your head,” Atlas reminds me grimly. “Queen Vinia will stop at nothing to avenge her son’s death. The Queensguard are hunting for you, and they kill first, ask questions second.”

I scoff. “As if you don’t.”

“For Draven?” A small smile plays over his lips. “It’s possible my gun would misfire.”

“And he only cleans those three days a day,” Cross retorts, wryly.

A roll of Atlas’s navy eyes. “Give me leads when you have them. Otherwise, limited contact. No blowing covers. Stay dark.”

“Outside cookie time,” I add.

“Outside tea time,” Atlas echoes, as if I care about leaf soup. To Cross, he adds, “Zeke will swing down every weekend to check in. He’s been feeling cooped up, let him out a bit for me.”

“No Lev?” Cross asks, sweeping me into his chest, shadows caressing my elbows.

Atlas runs his tongue over his teeth. “Not this time. He’s keeping busy on the mission with Sin and Drake. It’s good for him.”

I squeeze Cross’s fingers. My memories of the Russian are limited, but I know he’s Cross’s partner and best friend, and the sudden distance is no easy feat.

“If there’s a Phoenix out there,” Atlas states. “We’ll find them.”

“And we’ll keep them safe,” Cross adds, dropping to brush his lips over the ink on my cheek. “Together. Always.”

After decades trapped in the dark, the Blackguard have a lead and renewed drive. The king may be dead, but it’s clear his reign still influences the realm, whether through marriage contracts, alliances or his family. Maybe Kadmos’s curse wasn’t selfish, maybe it was a way for him to ensure, even in death, hope would burn. It’s up to the Blackguard now. Villains and killers, a family bound not by blood, but beliefs, to uphold the king’s original intentions. Safety for all creatures. Equality. Peace.

Not just the Blackguard.

Me too.

Cross and I can dance around it as much as we like, can dread and fear it, but power hums inside me. Raw, war ending power. And it’s clear in my tattoos, Cross’s notes, in the sting of the spymasters teeth on my skin when he confesses his love for me, that I am too powerful not to fight.

Which is good, because I’m never running again.

As Atlas leaves, his black wingtip boots leaving perfect marks in the shifting sand, a spark kindles inside me, flickering with the same golden light as the sun. The future is uncertain, but I know with bone-deep certainty that there will always be hope.

“Cross?” I ask, in that tone. The one that earns me access to any question, any request, any wish.

“Anything,” Cross returns. No hesitation.

My cheeks are sore from smiling. “I’m …” I wet my lips, and his gaze fastens there, darkens. I tilt my head at him. “… chilly.”

Instantly, a cage of black surrounds us, heat and darkness roiling, gone are the sun and waves. There’s nothing but the spy and his power. And me, tucked between. Lovely, burning desire glazes Cross’s irises, eradicates the green until his intentions are black and white.

“Hmm,” I move to my toes, wrapping my arms around his shoulders. “I don’t think we’re going to make it back home.”

Even the shadows seem to laugh.