“I’m meant to be protecting you.”

“And I wasn’t going to watch you die when I knew I could save you,” she said, lifting her exhausted arm, still wrapped in her belt. Her knives and daggers sat unceremoniously discarded around the tree trunk. How quickly she must have dashed to this last tree on the cliff and fastened her lifeline. It felt like an eternity that Bri was battling the current, but it was probably mere seconds.

“You are so infuriatingly stubborn,” Bri growled.

“Maybe I should have let you die,” Lina snickered. “Then I wouldn’t have to put up with this lecture.”

Bri propped herself up on her elbow, leaning over Lina. “I’m just saying that a future Queen shouldn’t be following her guard over a waterfall.”

“Fine,” Lina said, narrowing her eyes at Bri. “Jump back in the water, then.”

Bri’s lips twisted up. She dragged her eyes over Lina’s breathless face and Lina flashed a matching grin as she reached up a hand and swept away the wet hair plastered to Bri’s forehead. Bri’s eyes trailed Lina’s smooth brown skin, water beading on her cheeks and forehead, tracing up to her beautiful dark eyes, an endless world swirling in them like a moonless night sky.

Lina’s gaze dropped to Bri’s lips and it was Bri’s undoing. Leaning down, she brushed her lips across Lina’s warm, full mouth. Breathing in Lina’s heady jasmine scent, she groaned at the sensation, that singular touch heating her chilled body. Lina’s hand came up to cup the back of Bri’s neck and pulled her closer. Their kiss deepened, Bri’s tongue dipping into Lina’s mouth. The quiet, low moan that she pulled from Lina sent tingles through Bri’s body, and she was suddenly filled with a desperation to elicit that sound again. She pressed her chest tighter into Lina’s, her knee curling over the top of Lina’s thigh.

“Bri? Lina?” Carys called, her swift boots stomping through the leaves.

The two of them broke apart, staring at each other wide-eyed.

“We’re here,” Lina yelled. She looked back to Bri, her face seeming to contort between confusion and surprise as she shook her head.

Lina rolled to the side and stood, climbing her way up the riverbank as Bri dropped her head into her hands. She’d nearly died—it was just the giddiness of surviving that made her heart race, nothing more. Who wouldn’t want to kiss their savior in relief? The memory of that heated look in Lina’s eyes made Bri quaver. The way Lina pulled Bri’s mouth closer—Lina had wanted to be kissed too. The river had revealed truths that she couldn’t whisper even in the quiet of her own mind. Cursing all the Gods, Bri stood, wringing out her sodden clothes and following Lina up the bank.

*   *   *