The Triumphant (The Valiant #3)(52)

I waited for him to look back up at me, searching his gaze when he did.

“Is that why you didn’t even try to argue when Caesar banished you to the Ludus Flaminius?” I asked. “Because you had to get away from me and my ghosts?”

“No.” He shook his head adamantly. “Oh, my dear heart, no. Leaving you was the last thing I ever wanted to do. After a while I realized that I couldn’t hate them for having done the same thing I had: falling in love with you. Although, I will admit . . . it’s not so easy sometimes living up to a ghost—but no. It was my own ghost that drove me there.”

“Your father.”

He nodded. “He tried to convince me that what he did was out of care for me. And there were moments—even after I put a sword through his guts—that I wanted so desperately to believe him.”

“We have that in common,” I said, remembering how my own father had been willing to bind me to a loveless marriage to keep me safe. What he thought of as safe, at least.

“I know,” Cai said. “And it’s cost us both dearly because we loved them and we honored them and we both thought—somehow—that we were blameful for their actions. But we weren’t. We aren’t. Not for anyone else. You don’t have to carry around ghosts and guilt anymore, Fallon. And neither do I. Those were their choices, not yours. And not mine.”

A stray night breeze picked up a strand of Cai’s long hair from around the side of his face and teased it across his brow. I untangled the fingers of my right hand from his and reached up to brush the hair back from his face. With that touch, a spark ignited in his gaze. He turned his head and leaned into the palm of my hand. His lips found my wrist, and he kissed the place where my pulse beat in time with my heart. When his hands came up to pull me closer, I heard myself draw a shaking breath.

“You’ve never—ever—had anything to live up to, Caius Varro,” I whispered. “Or anyone. Not with me.”

Cai’s head stayed dipped beneath mine as his mouth moved from my wrist to the inside of my elbow, and I shivered as he kissed the soft skin there, tipping my own head back so that I could see the stars overhead. My eyes drifted closed, and my free arm wrapped around Cai’s back. My fingers traced up the twin columns of muscle along his spine, until I reached the collar of his tunic and could slip my hand beneath to feel the warmth of his skin.

“This is dangerous,” I whispered.

“Horribly,” he murmured, not stopping.

“Foolish . . .”

“Irresponsible . . .”

I could feel the scars on his shoulder, like runes carved on stone. My head began to swim dizzyingly as my heart beat faster. “Tanis could still be near . . .” I murmured as Cai’s head lifted and he shifted his attention to my neck, kissing me just below the point of my jaw.

“We’re not talking about Tanis any more tonight,” he said, his voice gone husky. His hands moved up under my hair, fingers kneading the muscles at the back of my neck until I thought I might actually melt. “And anyway . . .” His teeth caught at my earlobe, sending little sparks of lightning shooting through me. “You said she rode off . . .”

“I did.” My head tipped all the way back.

Cai’s kisses traveled in a trail of fire down the front of my neck to the hollow at the base of my throat. “And you also said,” he murmured against my skin, “you thought you might have wounded her . . .”

“I did . . .”

I fell slowly backward until I felt the moss-covered ground beneath my shoulders, and Cai leaned over me, blocking out the moon, his hair hanging forward over his face. But not enough to hide the gleam of hunger in his eyes.

“She’s a coward,” he said, the weight of him pressing down on me. “And she’s lost the element of surprise.” His breath was hot on my cheek as he lowered his face down toward mine again.

“I thought we weren’t talking about her . . .” I gasped.

“We’re not. Don’t worry. She won’t be back.”

“Exactly . . .”

He made a sound like a low rumble of thunder in the back of his throat as my fingernails pressed hard into his skin, and I seriously considered adding to his collection of scars.

“Wait . . .” I dragged my nails across his shoulder blades, decision made. “How can you be so sure?”

He gasped, spine arching, and said, “Call it a soldier’s instinct.”

“You’re not a soldier anymore.”

“And you’re not a slave.” He paused to look me in the eyes, and I could almost feel the heat of that gaze on my face. “I’m no longer a patrician, and even if you are still a princess . . .”

“I’m not.” I grinned up at him. “I can assure you.”

“And we are together, alone, just us. With a roof of stars over our head and hours left until dawn. Just Fallon and Cai. For the first and—the way things are going—maybe last time for a long while . . . and I intend to take full advantage of that.”

I closed my eyes, drowning in a kind of bliss I’d never really known before as his hands traced the contours of my waist and hips, up the sides of my ribs. I felt his fingers tugging at the lacing on the front of my tunic. I lifted a hand to help with the knots and opened my eyes . . .