MY CRUEL PROTECTOR
I asked, my breath hitching.
"Yours," he whispered.
He kissed me.
It wasn't the kiss of a soldier to his queen. It wasn't the programmed devotion of a Shield. It was the desperate, hungry kiss of a man who had found his reason for existing. It tasted of salt, iron, and a terrifyingly human passion.
For a few seconds, the Sovereign faded. The Global Echo went silent. I wasn't the Architect of Moscow; I was a girl being held by a man who didn't care about the world she had built. I felt his heart thumping against mine—fast, erratic, and beautiful.