Iris lowered the wrench.
Chills raced along her skin as she stared at Roman. She couldn’t draw breath; she could only wonder if she was imagining him. If he would morph into a stranger when she closed her eyes. It felt like a cruel enchantment that Dacre would delight in, granting her a surge of hope before reality broke her.
Sweat trickled into her eyes, burning her vision.
Iris blinked, but Roman remained, just as solid and tangible as she remembered him. She let herself relax, and perhaps that was foolish. But she wanted to savor him, retrace every line and bend of his body.
To her shock, he looked older, thinner. There was a hollowness to his face that hadn’t been there before, and a cold slant to his expression.
“Kitt?” she dared to whisper.
He didn’t move, but Iris watched as he swallowed. His blue eyes smoldered as he studied her; she was jarred by it until she realized he was also taking in her every detail, from her neck down to her toes. Her skeins of hair, the freckles on her face. The longer he beheld her, the more his countenance softened, and she wondered if he was remembering her. If there was something about her that called to him. A mortal bond that was stronger than any divine magic.
“Kitt,” she said again. “Kitt, I—”
Roman laid a finger to his mouth. The two of them fell silent, listening to a burst of angry voices on the floor below. As far as Iris could tell, Roman was the only one who had ascended the stairs. But by the way the house shuddered, others might not be far behind him.
His gaze never left hers as they waited for the commotion to calm below. Doors opened and closed. An order was barked, although the words were indecipherable.
Iris bit her lip until it stung. She wondered if she was about to be captured. If Roman would fall with her. The image sent a shiver down her bones.
“Do you have a place to go?” he whispered at last. “A way to escape?”
Iris glanced at the wrench in her hand. She slid it into her pocket, flexing her tingling fingers. “Yes. There’s a car waiting for me. I was planning to crawl out the window.”
Roman hesitated, a tendril of black hair cutting across his brow. “I think that’s your best bet at the moment.”
She nodded, suppressing the urge to throw herself into his arms. To breathe him in. It was tempting to surrender to the past as if they had never been separated, to let those old days pull her under like a tide. But his polite reserve doused that fire. His guarded expression and words …
He doesn’t remember me.
Iris nearly bent over from the anguish. She twisted her wedding band on her finger instead, Roman’s inscrutable gaze tracking the movement. Even so, there was no spark of recognition within him.
It felt like a stone had settled in her stomach as she watched Roman stride to the window. He hefted it fully open without struggle, and a flood of crisp night air stole into the chamber, beckoning Iris forward.
“There’s a porch roof just beneath here,” he said after examining the view. He glanced back at Iris, motioning for her to come closer. “You should be able to climb down easily if you’re careful. It’s clear if you go now.”
Iris reached the window, the breeze stirring her hair. She stood so close to Roman she could feel the heat of his skin, and yet she didn’t touch him.
“Why are you helping me?” she murmured.
Roman became very still, his eyes riveted to the nightscape beyond the window. For an excruciating moment, Iris thought he wasn’t going to answer her. But perhaps she didn’t need his words; she could see it in his face when he met her gaze. He did recognize her, although it seemed pieces were still missing.
“I’ve dreamt of you,” he said. “I think you and I were friends before I left for the war cause.”
“Friends?”
“Or enemies.”
“You and I were never enemies, Kitt. Not exactly.”
“Then were we something more?”
Iris was quiet. She could feel the ache in her throat, how it brimmed with words she yearned to say but should probably swallow. In the end, she spoke them—in a husky whisper that he leaned closer to hear.
“Yes. I’m your wife.”
Roman reeled as if she had struck him. His eyes went wide and dark, a stark contrast to his pale face, and Iris couldn’t bear to see his flicker of disbelief.
She turned and clambered out the window, hitting her shin on the frame. The pain was an echo as she prepared to drop to the porch roof, the world feeling off-kilter, the air too sharp in her lungs. She was about to fall when a hand grasped her arm.
The heat of his fingers seeped through her sleeve like sunlight. Iris reveled in the feel of his hand, holding her steady as if she straddled two worlds.
That hand had once caressed her in the darkness, the one and only night they had ever shared together. That hand had once worn a ring, a symbol of their vows, and had typed countless letters to her, words that had fed and comforted and strengthened her. That hand was terribly familiar; she would have known it was him touching her, even if her eyes had been closed.
Iris exhaled, tasting salt and the metallic zing of blood on her lips.
Slowly, her gaze drifted back to meet his.
Roman’s eyes were still dark as he stared up at her, but there was no glint of doubt. No scathing disbelief. There was only the shine of hunger as if Iris had just roused him from a long slumber.
His fingers trailed down her arm, following the curve of her elbow until his hand found hers, his thumb touching her wedding band. He softly gasped as if in pain, but before Iris could respond, he tugged on her. While her face dipped down, his tilted upward, until their gazes aligned and there was nothing more than a breath between their mouths.
“Iris,” he said. “Iris, I—”
He was interrupted by gunshots, sounding off in the distance.
Iris startled and crouched lower on the windowsill. She envisioned Tobias and Attie, waiting for her on the side of the road. She needed to go, and yet it felt like she was about to tear her heart up by its roots.
“Come with me, Kitt,” she whispered, tightening her hold on his hand. “Come with me.”
Roman glanced away. She could see the struggle within him. The perspiration that gleamed at his brow, as if his body was under tremendous strain.
“I can’t,” he said hoarsely. “I need to stay.”
Iris nodded, a protest dissolving on her tongue. Tears pricked her eyes, turning the world into a blurry haze. She turned to flee but Roman held on in a white-knuckled grip, as if he would evanesce into smoke the moment he let her go.
“Look at me.” His voice was pitched low. Confident and compelling. The way he had sounded before the war had come between them. “I’ll find you again when the time is right. I swear it.”
“You had better,” she countered.
The corner of his mouth quirked. A smile, but it was fleeting. “And when I do, you can ask me for the favor I owe you.”
Iris frowned. What favor? She didn’t remember them ever speaking about this. Roman must have read her face; he began to say more but was interrupted by an unfamiliar voice. A sharp call that emerged from the stairwell.
“Correspondent? Report in.”
“Run, Iris,” Roman begged as he let her go.
Her palm felt bereft without his until she flexed her fingers. She saw her ring catch the light of the torch.
Iris had never removed it. The band had remained on her finger since Roman had first guided it there, gleaming at eventide in a garden. But she didn’t hesitate now; she slid the ring off and gave it to him.
“Keep it,” she said. “A token to remember me by.”
Roman said nothing in reply. But his fingers curled around the ring, hiding it like a secret in his palm.
Iris turned away. She could feel his eyes on her, watching her every move as she let herself fall into the darkness.
