Beru didn’t think. She just reacted, thrusting out her hand and sending a gust of power toward Lazaros, knocking him forty paces into the trees, out of sight.

The god reached for control.

No! she pleaded, shutting her eyes tight, grasping for the protection of Pallas’s seal, trying to wrestle the god’s power back.

The god roared at her, fury like she’d never felt before consuming her.

She was frozen, paralyzed as the god’s fury stormed through her.

“Beru, we have to go,” Hector was saying frantically. “There are more of them. We have to move, now.”

“Get away,” Beru gasped. It was all the warning she could manage. “Get away from me.”

She wanted to kill him. She wanted to end him.

She squeezed her eyes shut.

Hands on her face, fingers tugging through her hair.

Lips on hers.

Fear and love and desire crashed against the god’s fury. Beru swayed in Hector’s arms. His lips captured hers, and the pounding of Beru’s heart drowned out the roar of the god. The soft warmth of Hector’s mouth drove all other feeling away.

She remembered the night in the desert, when the Daughters of Mercy had left them in the desolate nothingness to die. She remembered the sandstorm that had raged around them, and the way Hector had wrapped her in his arms, shielding her.

Now, the god was a storm, threatening to bury her. But Hector’s love and his longing was something to cling to while the storm raged mercilessly on.

She felt his emotions pour into her like honeyed light seeping through her veins. It shone brilliantly, breaking up the dark clouds that had consumed her. Quieting the storm. Hector was the sun and she was the moon, absorbing his light and reflecting it back.

But that wasn’t right. She was the one who had forced her feelings onto him. Whatever longing she felt was her own, mirrored back to her through the connection in their esha.

Her eyes flew open and she shoved herself backward, out of Hector’s arms, putting a few precious inches of space between them. Horror and desire thundered through her in equal measure. He had just kissed her.

Why had he just kissed her?

He pulled in a labored breath, staring at her. “Did it work?”

At first she had no idea what he was asking, but as she felt the thump of her heart in her ribs, she realized the constant disdain and irritation was gone. The murky fog that had clouded her mind for days, while not gone completely, had dissipated. For the first time in days, she felt like she could see clearly again.

“Oh,” she said, touching the pad of her finger to her lip.

Hector looked relieved. Then his expression crumbled a little. “Sorry that I—I just panicked. I shouldn’t have—”

“Hector, it’s all right,” Beru said.