Elizabeth would say he began working on my downfall at the very beginning of my Everlife. After all, what better moment to set me up for failure?

    “No,” I say. “I haven’t changed my mind.” So I had a doubting thought. So what? I’m not going to entertain it any longer. I’m not going to allow it to grow into a worry.

    It could be foolish to trust him so completely, yes, but I’m going to do it anyway, just as I promised. This boy has more than proved himself.

    The alternative? Walking away from him without knowing what could have bloomed between us.

    “Good.” He stops in the middle of the sidewalk to cup the side of my face. “Just so you know, hurting you isn’t on today’s agenda, lass.”

    “Oh, so it might be on tomorrow’s menu?” I tease.

    “I’m planning to hurt you never, yeah?”

    I lean into his touch and nod. He gifts me with a soft, swift kiss.

    “You do realize we are making our relationship happen, right?” Step out of darkness and into Light, Killian. “Not Fate. Us.”

    “No more talking.” He leads me to the alley. To the spot I first appeared. Grinning, he pushes me against the wall. “We have better things to do.”

    I gasp as I meet the cool brick...but the hot male in front of me makes me gasp even harder.

    His hands settle on my face again, his grip strong but gentle. “You cause me nothing but trouble, lass. You do realize that, right?”

    I melt against him. “I thought we had something better to do with our mouths.”

    “Oh, we do.” His eyes sparkle as he presses his mouth against mine.

    I welcome him, opening. Our tongues thrust together, and this time, we aren’t restrained. We take and give, take and give, the kiss hard and aggressive. The sensations return and redouble, leaving my knees quaking. His breath is my breath, and my breath is his.

    Here, in this moment, we exist for each other.

    I’m on fire for him. I’m throbbing, aching.

    He groans and bites at my bottom lip, staking a claim. “With you, I always want more.” He slides his hands under my thighs to heft me up. In an instant, he becomes my anchor.

    I wrap my legs around him, clinging to him.

    The earth moves—

    No, no, it merely shakes, but Killian holds me upright.

    “The Buckler is down. We can be seen here,” he says, and kisses me again.

    I don’t know how he does it, but he manages to push a series of buttons on his keyboard without breaking our kiss, whisking us both to—

    I lift my head, panting as I take note of my new surroundings. A cave. Our cave. The one in the Urals, a few miles from the asylum.

    Soon after my escape from Prynne, I had to fight three giant brutes intent on...well, it doesn’t matter anymore. I’m scrappy, even wily, but at the time, I was also freezing, not to mention weak from starvation and a recent beating. Killian found me and carried me here, where he patched my wounds.

    That was the day I learned about his Shell and his status as a Myriadian Laborer.

    A moment of panic. Does he know how close we are to Dior? Then I calm. Maybe he does, maybe he doesn’t. He doesn’t have to be near her to insist I return her to Myriad, and yet he remains focused on me.

    A frigid wind whistles outside the cavern walls. Not that it matters with our Shells. He pulls a switchblade from his pocket. Instinct sends me rearing back. He frowns at me and stabs the blade into his left arm.

    I suck in a horrified breath. “Stop! You’re hurting yourself!”

    “No, I’m disabling my comm.” Beautiful Lifeblood trickles from the wound. “But feel free to kiss me better.”

    “How about I kick you worse?”

    With a mock growl, Killian stabs the blade into my left arm. I feel—

    A slight prickle. “That was anticlimactic.”

    He chuckles as he wrestles me to a pallet of soft blankets and pillows. When he pins me, a hank of dark hair falls over his brow.

    “No one can see us now,” he says. “I can do whatever I want to you...”

    I lick my lips. “Oh, yeah? So what are you going to do?”

    “This.” He tickles me, and I burst into laughter.

    “You’re a closet romantic,” I say, brushing my fingertips over his jawline.

    His eyes are hooded, his lids at half-mast. “For you. Only you.”

    Not just pretty words, but beautiful, exquisite. “Never, under any circumstances, hurt yourself for me.”

    He gives another mock growl. “I’ll do what I want, when I want. You’re not the boss of me.”

    I snort. “How long have you been planning to tell me that?”

    “Weeks.”

    Now I smile at him. “Have you been planning this little getaway just as long?”

    “Longer.”

    Ann-nn-nnd I fall even deeper in love with him. Just like that.

    “It’s one of the reasons I had to enlist Sloan’s help,” he adds. “I kept disabling my comm and needed a believable excuse.”

    Butterflies take flight in my stomach. “So she knows everything you’re doing for me, and you seriously, without any doubts, trust her?”

    “I do.”

    Still. My earlier nervousness returns. To place our future in the hands of my murderer... “Killian...”