She’d more likely call him a scoundrel, a charlatan, a common miscreant. The thought almost made him smile before it broke him. The dam shattered. Pain came for him in a brutal siege, radiating from his core until his mind was forced to submit to an invasion of memory. He was bombarded by scenes of the last few hours, scenes he wished he might banish forever from his history, to no avail: Cyrus could think of nothing now but her small hand at his brow, the home of her arms as she’d held him, the delicious agony of her skin against his face. His throat worked at the remembered feel of her, how
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