The old throne room was silent, save for the ragged breathing of the broken and the hopeful, as the Kingdom of Chaos was reborn in the hands of those who had once been its most wounded.
Chapter Seventeen
“The end is never really the end. It’s usually a beginning but sometimes it’s hard to see it that way. Especially if it was painful. But pain is what shapes us and changes us—hopefully for the better.” ~ Maddie
The engine’s hum was too loud in the hush between them. Maddie watched the landscape scroll past—woods thick and wild, the last bit of day clutching at the sky. It should have felt like freedom, this road leading away from blood and webs and the echo of Cassia’s last breath. Instead, Maddie’s skin prickled with every mile that separated her from adrenaline and crisis. Out here, she had time to think. And thinking was dangerous.
She’d put space between herself and Roan in the tiny airport terminal, walking ahead, keeping her chin up and her eyes forward. Her mind had reeled over what had happened in the tunnels of the Kingdom of Silk, the kiss that had not just broken their bonds, but threatened to break her will. At the moment when it happened, she’d been so sure in her convictions, but that was gone. She’d felt drained as they’d boarded the plane, madetheir way through the skies and landed. Now, in the enclosed car, every inch felt charged. The tension had changed—not the sparring, bristling energy of the month, but something heavier, more uncertain. The boundaries between them were shifting, and Maddie hated how it made herfeel: vulnerable, exposed, as if the armor she’d worn for years was suddenly too heavy, too brittle, and somehow see-through.
She could feel Roan’s gaze tug toward her every few seconds, heavy and assessing. He didn’t bother hiding it, of course. Roan never did anything halfway. He drove with one hand, the other resting on his thigh, and when he finally spoke, his voice was like gravel and velvet.
“You’re awfully quiet, Madeline.”
Her full name on his lips, which once simply irritated her, now felt almost intimate. Maddie ground her teeth. “Not much to say. We survived. We saved the world, or something like that. Now we drive back to regular life. Or as regular as life can be when knowing about a supernatural world and supernatural shifters all around.”
He seemed to let that hang for a minute. Maddie could almost feel him weighing his next words, and she braced for a fight she wasn’t sure she wanted. She was so used to his abrupt nature, quick tongue and abrasive behavior, this new side of him just felt bizarre.
“It doesn’t have to be weird, you know.”
She snorted, pressing her forehead to the window, watching the reflection of his eyes in the glass. “That’s rich, coming from you. You’re a walking contradiction, Roan. You say what you mean, but you never really sayeverything. You look at me like I’m supposed to know what you’re thinking. And now?—”
“Now what?” He asked when she paused.
Maddie ground her teeth together attempting to build her courage. “Now everything has changed.” She didn’t want to getintohowit had changed. That would require her to facehisfeelings and what if they weren’t the same as her feelings? What if all the things he’d said had been simply in the heat of the moment?
He didn’t respond at first. Maddie’s pulse hammered in her throat. She’d faced down spider shifters and a traitorous royal advisor with some serious baggage with more certainty than she felt now, sitting beside a male who’d once been her favorite enemy. Could she do this? Without puking? It was iffy at best.
“I say what I mean because I’m too old for games. And maybe it seems like I don’t say everything because I’ve been worried I would scare you away. But I’m done being afraid. I’ve seen too much to waste time pretending and worrying,” Roan said, voice low. “And right now, I’m thinking I want you. I want all of you, Maddie. No more hiding. No more pretending. No more fear of you running because I may not be a beast, but I will still chase you.”
Maddie whipped around to face him, anger flaring to life in her chest—hot, familiar, almost a relief. “You can’t just decide that, Roan. You can’t just—after everything—just claim me and expect me to fall in line. That’s not who I am. That’s not us. We shared a kiss, and it served a purpose.” Why the hell was she denying what it really was? Maddie had been there, she’d felt it. It had completely reshaped her world. If there had ever been something so completely earth shattering, that kiss had beenit.She’d heard his words and at the time agreed with them. So why was she backpeddling now?
He finally looked at her, his eyes dark and steady. “No, that’s not us. And that’s why I want you. You fight. You push back. But you don’t run from the truth—even when it scares the hell out of you. Why are you attempting to run now?”
She felt exposed, raw. “I don’t know how to do this. I don’t even know who I am after all this. I was nearly killed by spiders,Roan. The experience has changed me. Before all of this, I wasn’t relationship material. I couldn’t pick a good guy if he smacked me in the face. I don’t know if I know how to be anyone’s mate, especially yours. I mean, you’re you. You’ve done things, been things—important things. I’ve been a waitress.”
He turned onto a narrow side road, gravel crunching under the tires. “You think I know how to be a mate? You think all of thosethingsI’ve been and done have somehow prepared me for the most important thing I will ever be or do? It hasn’t, but I know I want to figure it out—with you. I’ve been alive a very long time, Maddie. I’ve watched empires fall, watched people waste their lives waiting for the right moment. I’m done waiting. This is our moment.”
She shook her head, eyes stinging. “You make it sound easy. Like I can just flip a switch and stop being terrified of needing you. As if I can’t put aside my worries that one day you’ll get tired of me and move on and leave me alone in a world that isn’t really mine. Men don’t stay, Roan. As soon as it gets hard, they hit the road.”
Roan’s hand tightened on the wheel. “I’m not asking you not to be scared. Hell, I’m scared, too. You think I’m not? You think a thousand years of fighting and losing and watching so many people I care about die makes this—makes loving you—easy?” His jaw clenched furiously before he continued. “And as to what you say about men, I amnotthose men. Whoever it was in your life that let you down, and I’m going out on a limb and saying it was your father, I am not him. I don’t take my responsibilities lightly. I don't make an oath and then spit on it as if it was nothing. I don’t make a female mine and then toss her aside when things don’t go my way. I am sorry that is the experience you’ve had. It’s time you had a new one.”
Maddie blinked, startled by the vulnerability in his voice. He’d always been the unmovable force, the one who neverflinched, never faltered. Now she saw the cracks, the exhaustion, the hope. But there was also conviction. He meant what he said. He meant it with everything inside of him. Don’t ask her how she knew but she’d bet her life on it.
“You’re still not getting it,” she whispered. What the hell was wrong with her? She should just shut up and take this amazing, handsome, brave warrior who wantedher. But as usual she just had to ruin a good thing, or what could be a good thing. “I don’t know how to fit this—us—into my life. I don’t even know what my life is supposed to look like anymore.”
He pulled the car over abruptly, shutting off the engine. The sudden silence thundered between them. Roan turned in his seat, facing her fully, his expression fierce. She shrunk away from him and waited for what he would say, what cruel words he might spew in anger at her.
Maddie was trying to disappear, shrinking into herself like she could outrun what was between them. Roan had seen it in her—the habit of making herself seem uneffected, of turning pain into armor. It made him furious, not at her, but at everything that had taught her she wasn’t allowed to be vulnerable. That she wasn’t worth fighting for. As if.
“I’m not letting you run, Maddie,” he said, voice like steel. “Not from me, not from this. I know you’re scared. I know you’re stubborn. But I also know you. You’re the bravest person I’ve ever met—and that scares the hell out of me. Brave meansyoucould walk away fromme.”
She glared at him, chin trembling. “Don’t put me on a pedestal, Roan. I’m just tired. I’m broken. But also don’t mistake me for being someone who can’t handle difficult things. Maybe I just don’t want to handle difficult things with you.”
He reached for her hand, threading their fingers together. “I’m calling b.s. You want me. I can feel it. Let’s be tired and broken together. Let’s figure out how to build something from the pieces.”
She tried to pull away, but he held fast, his grip gentle but unyielding.
“You don’t have to be perfect,” he continued. “You don’t have to have all the answers. You just have to be willing to try. To trust me—just a little.”
