Page 84 of Stealing Tink

Then the sobs I’ve been holding back let loose, and it’s the most humiliating thing I’ve ever experienced. Feeling the Nomad’s arms around me as I choke on silent sobs. As my mouth gropes for catharsis that’s been stolen from me, my cheeks drenched in tears.

The Nomad only grips me more firmly.

“Wanderer,” he whispers. “Tell me this. If you could speak, would you tell me to shut up?”

I let out a silent, pained laugh, though it alleviates the pain for a single moment. I nod against his chest.

“Is it helping? Distracting you?” he whispers into my ear.

I nod again, hoping he’ll keep talking.

But the Nomad doesn’t keep talking.

Instead, he slips his palm down to my jaw, cups it so I can feel the divots in his hands where I wounded him. He bends his fingers, tracing my jawline until he reaches my chin, and then, with the gentlest of pressures, he tips my jaw upward.

We’re so close now. Close enough to feel the tips of his eyelashes scraping my forehead. His eyes aren’t closed, but they’re the barest of slits. Crescents of blue shining in the dark night.

“If you’d like, I could distract you some more,” he whispers.

I blink, hesitate.

Then communicate the only way I can.

I press my toes into the floor, raising my heels.

When our lips touch, it’s not like it was with Peter, the thrill of something new.

No, this kiss is old. Ancient. Written in mountain caves. It’s the warmth of the sun at its surface, before it ever reaches our atmosphere, ever caresses our skin.

When the Nomad kisses me back, it’s not the lustful frenzy that I would expect from him. It’s the longing kiss of a long-lost lover. And all of a sudden, his embrace is familiar.

And then, of course, I remember why it’s familiar.

Because how many times have I kissed this man, but in my dreams? How many times have I lived this kiss, but with the Nomad as my husband, or trying to woo me? I’ve kissed this man a thousand times, but it always ends the same way.

With the breath fleeing my mouth, not from the thrill, but from his hands around my throat.

I pull back, my eyes wide, my hands trembling at my side.

The Nomad cocks his head at me in question, and I realize he’s not breathing. “Wanderer, I…”

But then someone from the hall shouts to check the storage closet.

“Sorry for the interruption, love,” he says. “But it seems I have some people to kill on your behalf.”

CHAPTER 36

When the Nomad steps out of the closet and into the hall, there is only one word that crosses my mind.

Carnage.

Company guards flank him on every side, but not for long. The Nomad is unarmed. Or, so they expect from a prisoner. Moments before opening the closet door, the Nomad had wrenched a pipe from the wall. Now, he wields it like a baton in one hand, the dagger he stole off the Company guard in the other. One of the Company guards laughs, drawing a saber from his side.

The Nomad simply laughs back.

The first guard strikes, but the Nomad fends him off with a parry. Sword sings against the metal piping. When the guard strikes again, the Nomad leans into the force of the impact, sending the man flying to the floor. Another guard steps forward, glances me up and down, and makes a rather crude statement.

The crack that resounds down the hall when the piping makes contact with the man’s skull chills my blood.