A Power Unbound (The Last Binding, #3)

by Freya Marske

Elsie Alston’s running feet hit the grass like pale secrets. During daylight hours she could usually be persuaded to wear shoes, but the day was fading and Elsie had unfastened everything of herself that could be unfastened. Shoes, stockings. Corset strings. The locks of her dark hair, which fell to the small of her back and bounced as she ran.

They weren’t talking about grief, which was its own pain and kept its own house.

The fragile thing in Alan cracked right down the middle. The saltwater crashed into his face, surging behind the skin of it, threatening tears. He swallowed hard, and then again.

I—didn’t expect to be told something about myself I didn’t know.”

If you let yourself soften and be porous. Even if only like this, in silence, and at an angle.

He said: “I would take your heart between my ribs and guard it like my own. Is there any way I could make you believe it?”

Kiss me until you know me, and unmake me, and love me anyway.

They agreed silently that this was far too much sincerity to be committed in public, but also that they wouldn’t say a thing to ruin it.