Vera was nearly to the edge of the square when the hairs on her arms lifted. She turned on instinct, clutching the knife in her pocket until her knuckles creaked.

The crowd parted briefly, revealing the fountain she’d just left behind, and she froze, elation and doubt both tearing inside her.

Impossible.

The milling crowd hid him before she could blink. Before she could decide if it was really him.

Venn.

He hadn’t looked quite right, even in that quick glimpse. He hadn’t been smiling, and his expression had been overly hard—not like Venn at all. It could have been a trick of her mind; she’d pictured him so clearly in her mind and she longed to find him so badly, her imagination had conjured him. That was all.

But if it was him . . .

Her pulse hammered. Without giving her feet the order, she started walking back toward the fountain. She pushed around the people blocking her way, but progress was slow—too slow. What if she lost him?

“Venn,” she breathed out, far too softly to be heard over the noise in the square. She sucked in a breath and called out louder, “Venn!”

There was no answer and she couldn’t see him through the crowd, but she continued to move. A man shoved her, cursing her in Mortisian. She only dodged around him and kept going, shifting into a run.

“Venn!”

Her desperate cry was surely swallowed by the rumble of the crowd and the pounding of the fountain, but she didn’t stop calling out to him. Didn’t stop searching for him.

And then there he was, standing on the rimmed edge of the fountain, head and shoulders above the rest of the crowd. He searched the square with narrowed eyes, his gaze sweeping over everyone in the crowd. His brow was creased, his mouth a thin line. Tension coiled in his shoulders and strands of black hair stuck to his ebony skin. Most of his hair was tied with a leather cord into a bun at the back of his head, and he wasn’t wearing a uniform—but it was him. Even at this distance, after this ageless time apart, she knew him.

She would always know him.

“Venn!”

He didn’t react, his cool gaze still roving the crowd. He’d already looked past her. Hadn’t seen her. Hadn’t heard her.
Her stomach lurched and she pressed harder, heedless of the annoyed looks and sharp elbows that caught her sides. “Venn!”

This time, he stilled at her cry. Then his chest rose with a hard breath. “Vera!” He spun on the edge of the fountain, his eyes digging over the square as he searched for her.

“Venn!”

His head snapped in her direction. Despite the people who still streamed between them, his eyes found her, and everything inside her warmed as she became his sole focus.

He leaped off the fountain and barreled into the crowd, shouldering past everyone in his way. She lost sight of him for a moment, and she only knew Venn had also lost her briefly because when he found her again, he stumbled.

The strongest and most confident man she knew had actually stumbled.

But even though he briefly faltered, Vera did not. She threw herself at him, knowing he would catch her.

She slammed into his hard chest, barely feeling the pain of the impact because he was here. Strong arms banded around her, tugging her so close she could barely breathe. His hold was fierce, as if she had never told him she didn’t love him. Could never love him.

Fates, she loved him.

Her arms were locked around his neck and she couldn’t hold back her tears. Seventeen eternal days she’d been with Salim and finally, for the first time since she’d been taken, she was safe.

Venn buried his head in the curve of her neck and shoulder, sucking in sharp breaths as he gasped her name against her hair. Over and over, as if it was the only thing he could say. The only word left inside him.

“You came,” she rasped, her breath hitching as she cried. “You came.”

“Of course.” He spoke with finality, yet emotion roughened the words. “I’ll always come for you.”