“Just shaken.” Serina glanced back at the men, who were still yelling insults. “I guess we have to feed them.” This was meant as a joke, but it didn’t quite come out that way. It seemed a shame to waste their precious rations on men who wanted to kill them.

“If we run out of rations, they can be the first to starve,” Val said mildly.

Serina glanced at him. His betrayal of the other guards didn’t appear to weigh on him; in fact, he seemed lighter now, more at ease, than she’d ever seen him.

“Did you want this to happen?” she asked softly. “You seem so comfortable with rebellion.”

Val paused before an unlocked cell housing the rest of the burlap bags of rations.

He took her hand, gently, and stepped into the small patch of bare floor in the cell, where they were out of sight of the guards. “Did I want a rebellion?” he murmured. “Yes. I hated this job, this life. Every day felt like penance for not getting here in time to save my mother. Every day was agony, watching more girls die.”

“And now that’s all over,” Serina murmured. “No one else will die.”

“No one else,” he agreed.

She drifted closer, until only a breath separated them. Adrenaline still rocketed through her body, but the signals it was sending had changed. Their hands shifted, separated. She moved hers to his shoulders, ignoring the pinch of her injured ribs. His slid to her waist.

Her pulse fluttered in her throat.

“Serina…”

“You said you thought there was something between us,” she said, her voice thick. “I said I needed time to sort it out.”

“Yes, that’s true,” he murmured, and his eyes darkened, and he stared at her mouth.

“What if I told you that things are different now? Now that you’re not a guard, and I’m not a prisoner?”

His fingers drifted to her bruised cheek. The lightest touch but somehow it still stoked a fire. Only, it wasn’t the fiery pain she’d been managing for hours now. It was something else. A fire that burned without hurting at all.

Their first kiss had been impulsive. Fleeting.

Serina had begun that one, and she began this one now, leaning forward until their lips just touched.

Val’s answer to her question came as a gentle pressure, an affirmation. He kissed her back slowly, sweetly, and let her take her time.

Serina’s belly filled with heat. She wanted this moment to last forever, to block out all the horrors of the night before, all the blood and death and pain. To block out the guards’ harsh voices, the memory of Diego yanking on her hair.

And for a few precious seconds, it did.

When she drew back, Val opened his eyes, and they were soft and lazy, as if he awoke from a dream. “I’m glad you sorted it out,” he said.