Chapter 191

His skin was warm. That surprised her. She had expected it to be cold, like the glass, like the grave he had almost entered. But his jaw was warm beneath her fingertips, rough with stubble, utterly human and alive. She let her hand rest there for a long moment, feeling the slight twitch of muscle, the faint pulse beneath the skin. He was still fighting. Even now, even with bullets in his body and poison in his blood, he was still fighting. That was her Hayder. That was the man she had fallen in love with—the one who refused to die, who refused to surrender, who would crawl through hell itself just to keep his promises.

“How?” a whisper escaped her lips, trembling as it passed through her vocal cords. “How did I not know it was you?” Her thumb moved gently across his eyebrows, down along the bridge of his nose, over the curve of his cheekbones, and finally rested against his cracked lips, as if memorizing them for fear of losing this moment. Her eyes lingered on his lips, hesit