We Hunt the Flame(111)

“Why did you come to Sharr?”

She opened her mouth and he stopped her, a gleam in his eyes. “If you say ‘honor,’ I will draw my sword and you will fight me.”

Her eyes widened and something raced beneath her skin. She was fully aware of the way she was pressed against him. The way the insides of her thighs held him in place. The way his eyes roved her, as heavy as a touch. “What’s wrong with honor?”

“Nothing, except that an act done for honor is done for honor alone. Nothing else.”

“I don’t do what I do for anything else. What do you know of honor, anyway?”

The corners of his lips twitched upward. Almost sadly. “A true hashashin follows a creed. I’m nothing but a loyal lapdog. You, on the other hand, you may do what you do for the good of your people, but that’s not the only reason, is it?”

Zafira bit down on her tongue. She thought of the Arz, the moments before her hunts. When she stood in the face of death and uncertainty and rushed into it. When the darkness beckoned.

“The first time I visited the Arz, it was because we were starving,” she said. “I know I could have stolen a goat or lamb, but ‘thief’ doesn’t have the same ring as ‘hunter,’ does it?”

He shook his head quickly when he realized she was waiting for a response.

“After that, I went because I couldn’t stop. When you live a life of endless winter, where the snow drifts the same, where the trees stand the same, where your mother—where ‘methodical’ becomes a daama disease, you … gravitate. It gave me purpose. Because a life without purpose is no life at all.”

“And?” he said, leaning closer. His legs shifted beneath her.

She shook her head, stopping him. Thinking of the Lion folding his fingers as he listed his proof. She couldn’t be doing everything for the mere purpose of being loved. She couldn’t.

“I’ve never seen a face more open,” he said with a soft laugh before growing intent, stealing her breath. “You do it for them. For them to love you.”

She opened her mouth to protest, but he cut her off.

“We’re so quick to dismiss the sentiment as weak, but hearts beat for love, don’t they? A life without purpose may be no life, but a life without love is nothing but an existence.”

She rubbed the backs of her knuckles across the ache in her chest. Something loosened, helping her breathe. He was right. The Lion was right, too. Nasir held her gaze, a strange look on his face.

Almost as if he had come to the same realization as she.





CHAPTER 75


Zafira smoothed the resin over his wound. It was nowhere near as potent as the black resin of Alderamin, but it would heal in its own time, without turning the skin black.

He must have sensed she was finished, because he grew still. “Huntress.”

“Back to titles, Prince?” Her whisper shook.

His voice was soft. “What are titles if not names, Zafira?”

Sweet snow, the sound of her name from his mouth. Something wicked darkened his irises, and it was so unlike the growling, grumpy, sad prince Zafira had come to know that her heart very nearly stopped.

He made a sound and lifted his palms to her thighs, and she couldn’t stop her gasp. She felt the heat of his hands so acutely that she nearly swayed. She drew her lower lip into her mouth, and something flickered in his hooded eyes as they swept her face.

“Fair gazelle,” he whispered. His touch seared her, and she relished the delicious chafe of her legs against his as she slid closer.

The imposing outcrop held its breath, the hush hush of the stream the only sound. She looked at him, oh so close. Near enough to touch. To run her finger down his scar, across the bow of his lips.

He swallowed. Looked away. His body thrummed beneath hers. His throat undulated, and she wondered how it would feel to press her lips to that pulse at his neck. Her heart pounded as fiercely as if she were running for her life. As if part of her wanted to get as far away as possible, while the other wanted him closer, closer.

Skies.

He clenched his jaw with a look of anguish and murmured something that sounded like that wretched splotch before lowering his head to her right collarbone, the one marred by her birthmark. His temple brushed the crook of her shoulder. The hiss of his breath branded her neck.

She felt the feather of his lips on her skin.

His breath rasped. Hers echoed.

She was the reason the stoic prince could hardly breathe. She was the reason his gray eyes glowed liquid black. Her chest crackled with embers when he lifted his tilted head and she leaned closer, sliding her palms beneath his parted robe and—

Someone cleared their throat.

Nasir pulled back with a growl, tearing his hands from her legs, and disappointment pinched Zafira’s skin. Deen, Deen, Deen, pulsed a reminder, but the rest of her was scorched by the fire in her belly.

The others had returned.

“Thank you, dear Huntress, for ensuring my prince was well cared for,” Altair wheezed.

He leaned against the outcrop and mopped sweat from his brow. There was a bloody gash on his forehead and a limp to his step as he tossed Zafira’s bow and quiver to her. His elongated ears stood out like a blossom in snow, and Zafira was struck with just how little she knew of him.

She moved away and tucked the salves, tins, and kit back into her satchel, trying to stop the quiver in her hands. Her neck was aflame as she rose to her feet, Nasir doing the same before closing his robes.