Lior touched his lips, his mind muddled and his eyes unfocused as he stepped out of the carriage. His body moved on instinct while his thoughts stayed locked in the moment that had just passed. Again and again, his mind replayed every detail of the kiss—the way Daemar's lips pressed against his, the weight of his touch, the strange fire it had lit within him.
Daemar, for his part, was not much different. A man who had lived his whole life in loyalty to the crown, who had spent his days training, fighting, and striving to be remembered as someone strong and unshakable, he had never once spared thought for matters of the heart or of fleshly desire. But that kiss, unexpected and raw, had shifted something in him. The world seemed wider, stranger, more dangerous now, and all because of the boy who walked at his side.
