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The palace library books taught him geography and languages, but words on a page could not describe the sensation of standing on a windswept ridge, staring into the northern mountains.
Was it better to abandon a love to save it or to hold it close as it died?
They hadn’t changed either. Not really. Vasili was still a manipulative prick, and Niko was still the stubborn soldier, but together they were something else. Something beautiful. And powerful.
“Only for you.” His soft, pink lips parted, and his look of surprise spoke of a man who didn’t know how to be loved, and it choked Niko to see him so fucking vulnerable.
“Your timing, Yasir, is atrocious.” Yasir’s eyebrow arched some more as he gave Nikolas a knowing look. “Please tell me you’ve fucked, or he’ll be in that mood until you do.” Niko grabbed his coat and joined Yasir in the hall. “Like he said, your timing is shit.”
He made Vasili see himself differently.
Nothing in this world was going to stop Niko from saving him, or the wretched, vicious, wonderful bastard he was at all other times.
then Yasir was returning north. He’d let Niko down in not telling him about Alissand capturing Liam. He couldn’t let him down again.
He’s smitten with Vasili. It’s always been Vasili, even when they pretended they hated each other for weeks in the wagon. I’ve never seen two men so thoroughly in love and so ridiculously blind to it.”
“You’re my harbor. I’ll always come back to you. I love you, Liam.”
Tears squeezed from Niko’s eyes. If he died here, he’d do so with the truth on his lips, spoken in his last gasps. “I… love… you.”
Trust began with hope.
“You’re asking me to hang my life and the lives of my crew on love?” “There’s no greater cause worth dying for.”
Vasili had Amir’s neck clamped in his grip before he could draw breath to scream. “Elves took me, and you sent the guards away!” Shoving hard, he drove Amir into the bed of silk. His face turned red, then purple. His fingernails clawed at Vasili’s hand, and it felt good. Felt real. “You defiled Nikolas, poisoning the only damn thing I’ve ever cared about besides Mother, because I fucking ignored you?! You’re not a victim, Amir. You’re a vile, worthless, pathetic excuse of a man and everything I despise about our godsforsaken family.”
That was hardly a surprise given Yasir’s penchant for flirting with everything, including the law.
Vasili Caville had only ever tried to do the right thing, albeit a twisted version of it.
He’d see this done. He’d keep his word because it was all he had left to give the man he loved.
“Hurry,” Yasir puffed into his hands. “Roksana is freezing her balls off.” “You lost yours years ago,” Roksana drawled.
“I do not want this to be our end,” he whispered, his hard mask and its anger crumbling, leaving just a terrified young man behind.
Tiredness pulled Vasili’s strength from his body, made him want to rest, but gods, the fear that if he closed his eye, he’d never see Nikolas again…
There was a man’s word, his honor, and then there were the things that mattered above anything else. Like love.
Because if Vasili was dead and Niko too, and Liam was gone, then why was Yasir still here?
“Don’t fucking wait for me, Niko! You hear?” He didn’t look back because he’d be back.
it took every measure of restraint Niko had not to shove him against the balustrade and kiss him like he wanted to kill him.
he was free to see how Vasili’s precious face was open, so full of wicked glee that it made Niko’s heart ache to think he’d almost lost him.
Vasili, you’re beautiful in ways I don’t know how to describe, but I do know I love all of you.
Vasili was going to enjoy turning that grin into a gasp.
He was wildness, like the sea, and Vasili would willingly drown in him.
