AltairPOV

I dove out into open air, my back making hard contact with the ground as I landed skillfully in a haystack. Standing from the brittle pile of yellow, I sighed and looked around for Amai—she's been avoiding me since this afternoon and I wanted to talk to her, to find out why she ran.

It had taken me hours to search the fortress and the city, but the one thing I'd forgotten was that she could be hiding behind the fortress itself. It was also possible that she was in places I'd already checked, but somehow I doubted it.

I raced across the wooden beams under the pale glow of the moon and made it over to the tower from which I'd crushed the Templar army. My head snapped up and a grin spread across my face when I heard the familiar scrape of boots against stone.

"You can't hide from me if you're that loud," I called up to her as she looked down at me from a ledge. "Get down here."

She stared at me for a few seconds, then continued up the wall. My eyes narrowed and I followed, competitive edge lending speed to my hands. By the time she had reached the top, so had I.

Being as close to her as I was, I forced her back against a wall and blocked the escape routes to the left and right with my hands. "Amai, I've been looking for you for hours—I'm not chasing you through the city now. You may be good at running, but not as good as me."

She seemed to shrink when I said this and as she did so the moonlight filtering through the wooden slats on the wall fell on her face and I realized what a cute shade of red her face had become. "You were afraid?" It was both a question and an accusation.

She looked away, a silent form of submission.

I smiled. "Don't be."

She looked at me with those adorable gold eyes of hers and I closed the distance between our faces. My hand snaked around her waist to pull her body to mine, eliminating the empty space between them.

It had taken far too long, but now I knew why I cared so much, why she seemed to be the center of my universe. Now I had her, and I didn't want to let her go. But I was forced to when air became lost to us both.

"This is what I meant by 'mine'," I explained, breathless and exceedingly content.

"I'm yours," she replied with a smile.

"You have no idea how long…" I growled, pulling Amai into a fierce kiss and back onto my bed.

She managed to break away. "Altair, I have to go."

"You aren't going anywhere," I laughed and kissed her once more. Besides trying to push me away she made no arguments, and even those I knew she didn't mean. But when she moved her hands from my chest to the sides of my face and pushed it away I couldn't help but look at her in annoyed disappointment.

"I really have to go," she said, looking at me with a pleading expression.

I smiled and let her up. "Fine, go. Remember what I told you."

"Be careful, watch for guards… anything else, oh discreet one?"

My eyebrow rose. "Talk to the rafiq before you investigation."

Her hands went to her hips. "His name is Malik," she said in his defense.

"Malik is nothing but an angry, loud-mouthed scholar with a vocabulary too large for his own good," I scoffed, then looked back at her. "Now go ask the genius for his help."

I knew she wouldn't take it, though. She rolled her eyes and left, leaving behind a feeling of foreboding so thick that it hung like a cloud in the room.