Page 72 of Kazimir

“Do not start something you are too tired to finish,” he said softly.

It was a warning. It was a dare. It was also a promise.

I leaned down anyway and pressed my mouth to his. Not greedy. Not yet. Just enough to remind myself what safety tasted like when it had fangs.

He kissed me back with maddening restraint. A slow, devastating claim of lips and breath and the promise of more under lock and key. When I made a small protesting sound against him, he deepened it for one punishing second, tongue stroking mine, then pulled back just enough to ruin my life.

“Cruel,” I accused.

“Disciplined,” he corrected.

“Same thing, only buttoned-down.”

He rose in one smooth motion and hauled me up with him, one hand at my waist. My body went immediately, stupidly alert to the length of him against me. Stress was apparently an aphrodisiac, which felt rude but not inaccurate.

His forehead touched mine. “Come,” he said. “You need water, food, and then I will decide whether I allow you to be defiant.”

“I enjoy that you think you decide that.”

“I enjoy that you think this is a debate.”

I felt the wards before I saw any sign of Amelia’s work. They licked over my skin in testing passes, less like a cat and more like a locksmith learning a key. The sensation made me shiver.

Kazimir noticed. “Too much?”

“No.” I tilted my head, letting the strange brush of magic move across the back of my neck. “The wards are… smarter.”

“They are looking for ways to hold you.”

I glanced up at him as we turned toward the private stair. “That should have sounded creepier than it did.”

He made a low sound that might have been amusement. “You have become corrupted by architecture.”

By the time we reached the office, someone had already set a tray inside: water, two glasses, a covered plate, another smaller plate with fruit that looked too expensive for ordinary panic. Efficiency here was a love language all its own.

He shut the door behind us. The room breathed amber and shadow around us, the dark glass wall holding back the life below. For one glorious second I wanted to walk straight to the sofa, strip, and let him turn fear into something with a pulse and an ending.

Instead, he poured water and handed it to me.

I drank half in one go.

“Good,” he said.

“Do not say good like I’m a horse you’re trying to keep from going colicky.”

His gaze went very still. “I would never dare to compare you to livestock.”

“I’m relieved your standards remain so high.”

I laughed as I set the glass down and lifted the silver dome off the plate. Bread, sliced meat, cheese, a handful of olives. It looked absurdly civilized. War council, celestial threat, probable siege—have some charcuterie.

I laughed again, because if I didn’t I might have screamed.

Kazimir looked slightly worried. “What is it?”

“This,” I said, gesturing at the plate. “The world is ending and someone thought, Devon should probably have salami.”

“Likely Lucia.”