“If you'll let me.”
His words hooked me harder than they should’ve.
Then it hit me that I might not have another flow while these men were here with me. If the elder was right in her prediction, I would soon be with child.
Whosechild?
“If Merrick dies on his thirtieth birthday.” My words came out in a guttural, tortured croak. “Will you die too?”
He closed his eyes and left them that way.
13
Reyla
Idozed and woke when Lorant lifted me from the bed. Sleepy, I snuggled into his chest. Despite the dull, throbbing ache low in my belly, it felt too good to be held by this man, to let him sweep me up and take me wherever he pleased.
He settled on the sofa with me nestled in his lap, and with a flick of his finger, the cold and dark wood lying in the hearth lit up. A fire soon crackled, spreading heat and lighting the room with lulling flickers.
Farris looked up from where he lay on the cushions beside us. After one flop of his tail, he drifted back to sleep, leaving me alone with Lorant, the king of the night.
Lorant dragged a blanket off the back of the couch and draped it over us, settling me with my side pressed against his chest.When I leaned my cheek against him, I could hear his heart beating steadily.
The crackle of the fire filled the room with a low, soothing hum, and I drifted to sleep, waking sometime before dawn.
My belly throbbed again, damn thing. Yet the warmth of Lorant’s chest against my side helped.
His arms tightened around me, one of his hands resting on my hip beneath the blanket. “Is the pain back?” At my nod, he crafted another mug of potion, magicking away the cup after I’d finished.
I remained in his arms, telling myself I did so because it hurt too much to move, not because I wanted to—neededto.
Such a lie.
Every action and choice we made wove us into fate’s grand pattern. If lying was a cut in my thread, a fray they hadn’t anticipated, would they punish me for it? Or would they let me unravel completely one day?
There was this part of me, a strange, rebellious part, that said maybe this ability to lie wasn’t a flaw at all. Maybe I was something new. Something the fates hadn’t seen coming. I was an error in their perfection, one that would thrive.
No ripple stayed small forever.
Silence stretched between us, but it wasn’t empty. It hung with bruised edges I wasn’t sure either of us knew how to soothe. I wasn’t ready to push him away. There was something almost fragile in the way he held me, as if doing so was all that mattered to him. Such a silly thought. And unnerving. Seeing him in this way, unlike the snarly fae lord who prowled the shadows of my night made my heart throb.
He told me he’d wanted me from the moment he saw me.
I wasn’t sure how to deal with that.
“Thank you. The pain’s easing,” I said to keep my mind from rushing down that path.
“You shouldn't need me like this.” His words came out quiet, yet they sounded as if he’d dragged them up his throat.
“You don’t have to be here. You don’t need to hold me?—”
“Oh, I do.”
He didn’t, though. “And you don’t need to craft pain potions for me. I’ve survived many flows in my life, and I’ll find a way through the rest on my own.”
“That wasn’t what I meant. You shouldn’t needme, not when Merrick can give you everything I can’t. As you rightly pointed out, he’s better than me. Kinder. Safer. Easier.” His lips thinned. “I’m the storm.”
“Why would anyone want easy?” My voice came out hoarse, my heart too shattered for this conversation.
