* * *
THORNE
I blink at her a few times, not daring to believe what my ears heard. “What?”
She props her hands on her hips and steps closer, angling her chin to keep her eyes locked with mine. “I thought I’d get to say that with kindness, but instead I have to convey it with anger because I’msomad at you.”
“You have every right to be,” I rush to say. I’m still reeling from her declaration.
“Damn right I do,” she says. Then her shoulders sink and some of the tension leaves her posture. Her eyes release mine and she lowers her face. Her forehead lands on my chest.
My fingers burn to touch her, to hold her, but I’m not sure whether she wants my embrace or to rail at me more. I will not touch her until she’s ready for that. I will not try to smooth this over with caresses and kisses. What I did to her—stealing her memories, breaking the sleeping spell—may have felt like the right thing to do in the moment, but it ended up putting her in danger. It pitted her against her family when my binding promise to do whatever it took to wake them was supposed to bring them together.
What I did was wrong.
Fuck, have I ever done anything right by her?
I fight back my roaring urge to hold her and keep my hands at my sides.
“But this is fitting for us, isn’t it?” she whispers against my chest. “Love and anger entwined. Stars, I love you so damn much but I hate what you did.”
My heart slams against my ribs. “I love you too, Briony.”
She lifts her head and grasps the front of my shirt in her hands. “Don’t ever command me again. I won’t ask you to make a bargain like you tried to make with my family, but—”
“The cursed bond is broken,” I say. “I revoked my birth name and left the Lemurias. I am no longer Vintarys. The meaning of my name isn’tironanymore, which means you cannot be bound by me. My name is Thorne Blackwood.OnlyThorne Blackwood.”
Her eyes go wide. “You left your family?”
I nod. “It was the best way to set you free from my power over you.”
“Oh.” Her hold loosens around my shirt as her brow knits into a furrow. “Why aren’t you touching me?”
My chest tightens at the question. “I didn’t want to until you were ready. Until you’ve lashed out at me in all your rage.”
“Why?”
“Because as soon as I touch you, I won’t be able to let you go.” My fingers flinch, eager for the feel of her. “So until you’ve given me all your hatred like I deserve, I’m keeping my hands to myself.”
Her expression softens with a coy smile. She slides one hand up my chest, then behind my neck. The other caresses my collarbone, sending a shiver down my back. “You’re out of luck there, Thorne,” she says, voice soft. “I’ll never be done being angry at you. I’m sure you’ll enrage me a thousand times more after this. But that doesn’t lessen my love. I love you, Thorne. I love you in all my anger. All my rage. All my passion. I love you fiercely.”
Her words pierce my heart, but not with pain. With warmth. With…hope. Do I dare accept that? “You know I don’t deserve you, right?”
She narrows her eyes. “You don’t get to decide that. I do. And I’ve chosen you.”
“You’ve chosen me over your family. Will you come to regret that?”
She scoffs. “You’ve got some nerve assuming I’m doing all of this for you. I left my family forme. Got it?” Her hand leaves my collarbone to prod my chest with her forefinger. It reminds me of when she did the same thing when we stood on her balcony before I took her to see the stars. She said something similar then. That I deserve to be cared for and have to accept that as a fact.
A layer of darkness melts beneath the increasing warmth in my chest. “Got it.”
She splays her hand over my heart and squints at me. “You didn’t leave your family just for me, did you?”
I know the right answer. That I left them out of a sudden awakening to my family’s wrongs, that I realized she was right about both our families being corrupt. But the truth is, if I hadn’t met Briony Rose and fallen in love with her, if she hadn’t so deeply changed me in ways she doesn’t yet know, I would be with my family still. I would have no reason to doubt them or my place in the clan as a tool for revenge.
I left my family to save Briony.
I’m not sure what that makes me. A good man would have stood against my family long ago and never would have done what I did at Briony’s birthday party. An honorable man would have stuck with my family at all costs, holding promises of family and duty over matters of the heart. But as I’ve already surmised, I am neither good nor honorable. Nor do I have any intention to be on a grand scale. All I want is to be a better version of myself. The one Briony sees. The one she deems worthy of forgiveness, of love, and to stand at her side.
