sank in. Then he said, “Number four. There are people who love you. Niniane and Grym. Hell, maybe Grym is right, and Dragos does too. Graydon’s pretty mad at you, but you know he loves you.” He took a deep breath. It was time to throw himself on his sword. “Me.”
Her eyes dilated until they were mostly black. “You?”
“Yeah, don’t dwell on it,” he said. Okay, he was done now. He tried to pull back so that he could stand up and walk away.
She lunged forward and grabbed him by the shoulders. “Oh, no you don’t!” she said. “You can’t just throw a tear gas canister like that into the room and walk away when it goes off.”
“I don’t see why not,” he muttered. He tried to turn away, but her face was ablaze with so much emotion he remained on one knee just so that he could keep gazing at her, and soak up the sight.
“If anybody would have said I was unlovable, I would have thought it would be you,” she whispered.
Suddenly he had no desire to go anywhere as his face creased with silent laughter. He told her, “I would have said so too. Then I found out that, even though you are still the most maddening creature I have ever met, you are actually quite lovable.”
Her head bent down as she slipped one hand to the back of his neck. She said softly, “And even though you are every bit the dangerous bastard I thought you were, you are really quite trustworthy.”
The words hit him between the eyes. They were all the more powerful because he knew how little she cared for returning courtesies, mouthing platitudes or pretty nothings. He said, barely audibly, “I’m glad you think so.”
Her long fingers worked at the back of his neck, massaging him. She straightened her back as if steeling herself. “About the mating thing.”
His eyebrows rose. “Oh, is that still in the room?”
Laughter flashed in her eyes. Then she sobered. As blunt and direct as always, she said, “I haven’t put words to what was going on inside me, but I could be mating with you too. I’ve never experienced this kind of— total engagement before. You don’t need things I’m not interested in giving. You fight me, and you don’t back down. You can fight
When she paused as if searching for more words, he held her gaze as one corner of his mouth lifted. “And I sex your ass up.”
She burst out laughing. “And that too. The thing is, we have a choice right now. We haven’t gone too far, and we can back the hell away from all of this if you want. But before you make any decisions, I want to tell you something. A very long time ago, I made a promise to any mate who might or might not come into my life one day.”
Whatever he had been expecting when he initiated this conversation, this wasn’t it. He whispered, “What did you promise?”
She stroked his jaw lightly with one hand. “I will never betray my mate and never endanger his life with my carelessness or impetuosity. I will fight for and with him, and always have his back whenever he might need me. I will not leave him, and I will not lie to him, and if he will only be patient and forgiving, I will learn how to forgive too, because he will be the most important thing, ever, in the world to me. I will give everything I have to him, along with everything I can be, if he will only do the same for me.”
She couched everything she said so carefully, but those words she spoke were his words. Those promises were to him.
“Why are you telling me this now?” he asked, very low.
“Because as you said, you’re going into war too, and you need to know who your fighting partner is,” she said without preamble. “You need to know that you can trust me. I heard what you said. I heard everything you said, and while I’m still struggling with all of it, I want you to know that somehow it’s going to be okay.” Her eyes filled and she struggled for a moment. Then she said, “I might not know the details of how I’m going to survive, but I know that I will, because I could never endanger someone who was even a possible mate by throwing my own life away.”
That wild, dangerous part of him. He knew now where it was running, and to whom. The panther sank down and put his head in the harpy’s lap. He was an alpha male with too much edge, and he set it all at her feet.
He had never imagined he would find someone strong enough to take everything he was, and willing enough to embrace all of it. He could never have known that the one place where he would find peace was in the heart of the wildest, edgiest creature of all.
As the panther found his peace, the harpy stroked his hair and discovered tenderness. Then everything that lay twisted between them came clear as they reached the heart of the labyrinth they had been traveling together.
NINETEEN 
Aryal sat frozen. She didn’t know what to do when Quentin put his head in her lap. It was such an extraordinary experience, so surprising and fine. The weight of his upper torso against her legs felt exactly right. The sight of him on his knees was not at all what she had imagined in the heat of her anger and desire, and yet it was perfect.
They were perfect.
She ran her hands along his broad, bare shoulders and along as much of his wide, tanned back as she could reach. Underneath her touch, his powerful muscles shifted below his skin, a mystery cloaked in silk. His body was so well made, she basked in the pleasure of stroking him. She scratched her fingers gently against the grain of his short beard and watched as a shudder rippled through him.
“Talking to you doesn’t suck,” she said in surprise.
He lifted his head to look up at her, a grin creasing his face. “No it doesn’t. How about that.” Capturing her wrist, he stood and pulled her to her feet as well. “Come on. There’s a tub the size of a small swimming pool in the other room, and I’ve become obsessed with the thought of getting clean.”
She looked down at herself. She had washed her face and hands with careful handfuls of water from the wineskin, but it had done little more than shift the grime around, and her jeans, along with what remained of her once white T-shirt, were bloodstained and filthy.
With great relief and a lack of ceremony, she stripped. “This outfit needs to be burned.”
He went tense. As his stillness caught her attention, she glanced at him. He was staring at her nude body, traveling from her high, small breasts down the length of her narrow torso to her slim hips and long, lean legs. The private tuft of silken hair between her legs was very black against her pale skin. The reddened scars from the recent wolf attack still marked her, but they were rapidly fading.
While her arms and shoulders were in proportion with the rest of her body, they were cut with muscle. She had a natural aptitude for strength in her upper body, which she enhanced with regular workouts using a variety of weapons, constantly building aptitude and stamina. One of the most dangerous aspects of swordfights, or any fight, for that matter, was that they were so grueling.
While she didn’t believe that she was beautiful, she didn’t have a self-conscious bone in her body, and she liked herself. She had never once wished any of her physical attributes away, and had always believed that all of her flaws were ones that remained unseen. That was why it was a shock for her to encounter an awkward moment, like running into an invisible wall.
Yes, the attraction that coursed between them had been off the charts, but in that moment she couldn’t read his expression.
And she wanted him to like her.
His voice turned guttural as he said, “I’ve never seen you until now.”
She looked down at herself with a frown and brushed at one of her breasts with the fingers of one hand. She said wryly, “If you’re a boob guy, I guess you’re out of luck.”
Sexual tension smoldered in the hot afternoon air. She could feel it pouring off him. “You’re a knockout,” he
