The Zheninghai Chronicles (Books 1 & 2)

“What’s a knife doing at my throat?” she asked. Night wind caught strands of his hair, of hers, and the dark tendrils danced between them.
“Preventing a misunderstanding,” he replied.
She chuckled—low, long, and dry. The intensity in his eyes never faltered, never broke from hers, not as he stared her down, lips parted enough to reveal teeth.
“Lower your talons, and I’ll lower my knife,” he said.
“You first.”
But neither of them moved.
Behind his head, the sliver of moon drifted behind a cloud, and his face grew darker. She could barely make out his nose, his mouth, the planes of his cheekbones. The only way she knew his face dipped closer to hers was the warmth blowing across her lips, and the gleam of eyes like a wild cat’s drifting nearer. His hand fell from her jaw, slid behind her neck, fingers twining with her hair.
He was going to kiss her. It was a bone-shattering realization, one that dragged a gasp from deep inside her, that made her eyes fly wide and her stomach lurch.
Did she want him to kiss her?
No. Maybe?
“Promise me,” he whispered, and she felt the briefest brush of his lips on hers when he spoke. “Promise me that you will stop prying into my secrets.”
“Why?” The word was breathless, caught up in the wind that swept the night around them.
She felt him swallow, felt the soft huffs of his breaths against her lips. Still, he did not kiss her. Did not lean forward one more fraction of an inch and press his mouth to hers.
But he wanted to. The hand at the back of her neck, that pulled gently, tilting her face up toward his, told her he wanted to. It was the knife in his other hand, pressed to soft flesh where her pulse throbbed with a heady rhythm, that held him back.