“It’s too dangerous.”

“It’ll always be dangerous, Nikolas. I was there in Vancouver, remember? You and Chris put your lives in danger all the time. Soon Jordan will be a warrior and she will too. Are you going to hold her back and tell her it’s too dangerous for her?”

He swore again and raked his hands through his wet hair. “I don’t want to hold you back, but every instinct I have is telling me I need to keep you safe.”

Instinct, not feelings. That’s what this all came down to. I had no doubt that Nikolas cared for me, but his emotions, his actions, were driven by the bond, not something deeper. I’d suspected it for weeks, but I hadn’t wanted to admit it to myself. Maybe that was the real reason I hadn’t told him the truth. I’d been avoiding this confrontation and having to come to terms with reality.

“I understand.” I took a step back, noticing for the first time how quiet the place was. So quiet that I was sure everyone could hear my heart breaking. I wondered numbly if faeries had a cure for heartache.

“Where are you going?” Nikolas asked when I turned toward the stairs again.

The pain in my chest threatened to suffocate me, and I needed to get away before I broke down. “I’m going home. I can’t do this anymore.”

“Can’t do what?” he asked, his voice harsh.

“Love you,” I said so softly it was little more than a breath.

A hand closed over mine and tugged me around to face him. I stared at his chest as I blinked away the tears that threatened.

Nikolas’s other hand lifted my chin and forced me to look at him. His eyes locked with mine, and my breath caught at the raw longing and hope swirling in their gray depths.

“You love me?” he asked hoarsely.

Two hot tears ran down my face. “Yes.”

His mouth claimed mine with a fierce tenderness that made my heart want to explode in my chest. Nothing else existed for me in that moment but him, and my hands slid behind his head, pulling him closer. I let down the wall in my mind and my Mori crept forward, its joy melding with my own. Mine, it whispered possessively.

My knees threatened to buckle by the time he finally pulled out of the kiss. His thumbs wiped away the wetness on my cheeks. “Ya lyublyu tebya.” Before I could ask what the words meant, he framed my face with his hands and gave me a smile that was as devastating as the kiss. “I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

He kissed me again, his lips gently possessing mine until I felt drugged from the essence of him. When it ended, he crushed me to him as if he feared I might disappear. I wrapped my arms around his waist to let him know I was going nowhere.

“I wasn’t sure if you...” My voice broke.

“And I didn’t think you were ready to hear it,” he replied huskily. “I was waiting for you to say something, to let me know you felt the same way.”

Nikolas loved me. My heart expanded as it absorbed this wondrous knowledge. “How... long?”

He loosened his embrace, and I tilted my face up to look at him.

His fingers grazed my cheek. “I was lost the first moment I saw you at that club in Portland. I just didn’t know it yet. Before I even knew who or what you were, I was drawn to you. At first, I told myself it was my responsibility to protect you. But the more time I spent with you, even when we were arguing, the more I knew what I felt for you was anything but duty.” His smile dimmed. “I don’t think I knew how deep my feelings were until that day you traded yourself for Nate. That ride from Portland was the longest of my life.”

I had trouble forming words. “I’m sorry I put you through that.”

“I know.” He touched the hair at the side of my face. “Your courage is one of the first things I came to love about you, and I should have known you’d do anything to protect Nate and your friends.”

“And you.”

His arm tightened around me and neither of us spoke for a long moment, until I remembered that we were in a room full of people. Heat rose in my face at the thought of having an audience for such a deeply personal moment.

“They left,” he said.

“What?”

“Chris and the others. They went outside.”

“Oh,” I breathed.

He released me and led me to a bench in the now empty building. I sat at one end, and he surprised me when he lifted me into his lap and wrapped his arms around me. I rested my cheek against his shoulder as he stroked my hair.

“I was so busy trying to push you away that I refused to admit I felt anything for you at first.” My fingers toyed with the front of his shirt. “I didn’t know for sure that I loved you until Thanksgiving, but I think I started to fall for you at my apartment the night of the storm.”

“Was it my mad cooking skills?”

I laughed softly. “It was the first time I saw a different side of you, and you weren’t bossing me around for once.”

“We’ve come a long way since that night.”

“Yes, but you’re still trying to boss me around.”

“And you still make me want to tie your ass to a chair to keep you out of trouble.”

“Ha, you can try.”

He sighed deeply. “Sara, I hate the idea of you out there fighting, and I doubt I’ll ever be okay with it. I don’t think any male would be okay with the woman he loves putting herself in danger.”

The woman he loves. Heat pooled in my stomach and I wanted to kiss him again. Instead I said, “Do you know what it’s like for me when you go away on a job, especially with the way things are now? I don’t sleep, and I spend every minute praying we don’t get word that you’re in trouble – or worse. It’s torture. That night we heard you were under attack in Vancouver, I almost lost it. I almost lost you. Seeing you in danger kills me.”