The kiss was the only truth left in the world.
It was not a gentle thing. It was a collision. A desperate, frantic press of lips against lips, a confirmation of life in a world of ghosts and lies. His mouth was hard, demanding, tasting of grief and a rage that mirrored her own.
For a single, breathless moment, the world fell away. There was no tower, no chains, no mad princes or warring queens. There was only this. The heat of his mouth, the rough scrape of his stubble against her skin, the solid, undeniable reality of him.
He was alive. He was here. And he was kissing her as if he were a drowning man and she were his last breath of air.
A sound, a low, guttural growl of pure, desperate need, rumbled in his chest, and it was that sound that broke her. The last of her control, her pride, her carefully constructed walls of anger, crumbled into dust.
