Torn Sky (Rebel Wing Trilogy, Book 3) (Rebel Wing Series) by Tracy Banghart Page B

until Balias is dead. Until we’re all free.” The faces of the Safaran villagers—Samira, Alistar, Kori—flashed through her mind. “
All
of us.”
    “I’m not sure the nightmares will ever let me go,” Pallas said, sorrow lining every word. Before Aris could answer, Pallas turned back and sank into her bed.
    As Aris walked down the hall, her footsteps echoed the jerky beat of her heart. How long would the memories haunt them? Would the faces of the dead fade eventually? Did she want them to? Aris wouldn’t ask for those she’d lost to disappear from her mind completely. But she didn’t want her life to be defined by the ghosts that walked with her either.
    By the time she reached Milek’s door, she was brittle with unshed tears, in danger of shattering.
    Milek was waiting for her with a smile when the door slid open.
    He faltered at her expression, but she didn’t pause. In the space of a breath, her arms were locked around his neck and her lips pressed hungrily to his. There was no need to talk. Their bodies knew what to say.
    She pushed against him, forcing him away from the door, telling him with her wandering hands that she wanted him.
Needed
him. He was her safety. She craved his warmth, his breath, his beating heart.
    He answered her with the desperate pressure of his mouth, the restlessness of his own fingers over her back, her waist, the zipper of her jacket.
    Aris ripped his jacket off and threw it on the floor, reveling in the feel of his skin, the rough slide of his midnight stubble, the scent and taste of him. His hands smoothed over her skin as his teeth nipped at her bottom lip, asking for more.
    Aris nudged him toward the bed. He twisted, arms around her, and then she was falling backward into a pile of sheets, the cot’s springs squeaking as they took her weight. Milek followed, easing onto her. She wrapped her legs around him, her hands skimming his naked back. His mouth trailed lines of fire along her collarbone, her throat, her ear.
    “I want you,” Milek whispered, his breath tickling her sensitive skin. “When we’re together, everything else disappears.”
    As their bodies moved together in the dark, Aris let her doubts and demons sleep.
    ***
    “Tell me something about your past,” Aris whispered later, when they both hovered at the edge of sleep. “Something that has nothing to do with the war.”
    Milek adjusted her head more comfortably on his chest. He didn’t answer right away, so she listened to the slow, steady beat of his heart.
    “Daakon and I knew each other as kids, did I ever tell you that?” His voice rumbled under her ear.
    At Daakon’s name, Aris’s heart lurched. Milek didn’t have the luxury of letting the war go. It had taken his father, his best friend, and it had scarred his mother nearly beyond recognition.
    “No. I didn’t realize,” Aris murmured.
    He shifted so they lay facing each other. She was surprised to see him smiling. He touched the thin pink scar that ran from the corner of his eye to his mouth. “See this? Makes me look very menacing, right?”
    She nodded, curious at his amusement. “Like a warrior.”
    “It happened when I was twelve.” At Aris’s widened eyes, he laughed. “Everyone assumes it’s a battle scar, which it kind of is, but not
this
kind of battle.”
    “What happened?” she asked.
    “Daakon and I had the brilliant idea to use icicles for swords and practice fencing.”
    Aris wrinkled her nose. “Icicles? How could an icicle leave a scar?”
    “In early spring in Ruslana, everything starts to melt, and then we have these hard, deep freezes. . . . The icicles hanging from roofs can be as long as I am tall. Every year a few people die from falling ice.” Milek ran a gentle hand up and down her bare arm as he spoke.
    Aris studied him, jaw slack, wondering if he was teasing her. In Lux, nothing ever froze. Once, when she was small, a few snowflakes fell and the whole village went outside to watch. Some of her