My legs gave out.
I slid down the wall, my back scraping against the wood until I hit the floor in an ungraceful heap. My hands were shaking. My whole body was shaking.
I could feel the ghost of his hands. On my hip, in my hair, gripping me like I was the only thing keeping him tethered to the earth.
And I’d frozen.Gods, I’d frozen.
Not because I didn’t want it. Not because his touch felt wrong. But because for one terrible, guilt-soaked moment, I’d remembered what it felt like to kiss someone else. Someone whose hands had been gentle instead of desperate. Someone who’d made me feel safe instead of like I was burning alive from the inside out.
Someone who wasdead.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered to the empty room.
The words cracked in half, splintering into something that sounded more like a sob than language.
I didn’t know who I was apologising to.
To Navaire, for wanting this. For letting another man’s hands on my body, another man’s mouth against mine. For the way my heart hadracedwhen Varyth kissed me, like it was something I’d been starving for without knowing it.
To Varyth, for hesitating. For freezing when he needed me to be present, to betherewith him instead of drowning in ghosts and guilt. For letting him think it was about anything other than my own fucked-up inability to let myself have anything good.
And to myself—for being such a goddamn coward.
“I’m sorry,” I said again, quieter this time.
The room didn’t answer. The walls didn’t offer absolution. There was just me and the silence and the brutal, devastating weight of knowing I’d just ruined something before it even had a chance to begin.
38
Thetraining yardhad become mysanctuary. It had been over aweeksince the…incidentin Varyth’s study, and he’d spent the week fleeing from every room I entered.
The steel sang against steel, a violent symphony I’d been craving for days.
Shaelith and I moved like we shared the same goddamn bloodstream. Every strike, every parry, every brutal combination flowing between us without words or hesitation. We’d carved through Fenric and Darian like they were made of paper, leaving them scrambling to keep up with something they clearly hadn’t expected.
“Star’s blood,” Darian panted, his blade trembling as he barely caught another devastating strike from Shaelith. “You two are?—”
“Fucking terrifying,” Fenric finished, sweat dripping down his face as he desperately tried to fill the gap I’d just torn open in his defence.
Linc was perched on a weapons rack, grinning like this was better than any court entertainment. Brynelle sat beside him, those whiskey eyes bright with fascination as she watchedher wife systematically dismantle centuries of male warrior confidence. Eilrys had claimed a spot on the ground, looking perfectly content to witness her mate’s imminent demise.
And scattered around the edges of the yard, Lira supervised the children as they engaged in their own miniature war. Fionn and Eryx had ganged up against Mireth, their wooden practice swords clacking together in a chaotic symphony of childhood violence. Mireth was holding her own admirably, her small face scrunched in concentration as she parried both boys at once.
“That’s it, sweetheart!” I called out between dodging Darian’s increasingly desperate attacks. “Use their size against them!”
Fenric took advantage of my momentary distraction, lunging forward with a strike aimed at my ribs. I twisted away at the last second, his blade whistling past me close enough to part air.
I twisted away from Fenric’s blade, letting momentum carry me into a spin that put me exactly where I wanted to be, close enough to drive an elbow into his solar plexus. He grunted, stumbling back, and I was already moving, already flowing into the next strike like water finding cracks in stone.
“Anyone read anything good lately?” I asked conversationally, ducking under Fenric’s retaliatory swing.
Shaelith’s laugh was wicked as she drove Darian backward with a series of brutal combinations that had him scrambling. “Just finishedThe Hollow Crown. Political intrigue, betrayal, and a protagonist who doesn’t apologise for being ruthless.”
“Sounds perfect.” I parried Fenric’s next attack, our blades singing as they met. “I’m more of a mystery person myself. Give me a good murder and someone clever enough to solve it.”
“Romance has better stakes,” Eilrys called from her perch, watching with obvious delight as her mate got his ass handed to him. “Life-changing revelations. Emotional devastation. People actuallyfeelingthings.”
“Murder mysteries have corpses,” Lira countered, grinning. “That’s pretty high stakes.”
