As I look down on him, a peace settles over me that I never expected to feel while this metal is part of me.
With the gentlest movement, he brushes the hair from my face. His thumb grazes my cheek, his gaze flowing across my skin, everywhere that the tarnish glistens in the dim light.
He studies me as if he’s memorizing every tiny detail.
Over the last few days, I forgot about the tarnish.
I forgot that my hair used to be silver or that I ever looked any different than this.
My breathing slows, frosting in the air.
I can’t help my shiver. “It’s cold.”
He breaks into a grin. “It’s fucking freezing.”
He pulls me back down to his chest while I’m still straddling him and wraps the pelt around us. His body is a mass of muscle beneath mine, pressing against my thighs.
I nestle my head in the crook of his neck and he clasps my left hand, medallion and all, entwining my fingers with his.
“You took an enormous risk,” I whisper.
He’s quiet for a moment. “When the wolves came, I asked you to trust me. Your heart pounded and that’s when I realized what I’d said.”
I tip my head back to see his face and press a kiss to the underside of his jaw.
He takes a deep breath and my body lifts and falls with it.
“I can’t expect you to trust me if I don’t trust you first,” he says.
My heart warms as I take in the peace in his eyes. The trust I find there.
I give him a small smile. “I remember you once said to me that one day, you would find a way to free me from my magic. You said that if there was no other way, you would rip it from me like you cleaved the magic from the other Blacksmiths.”
He cut off their hands, rendering them powerless.
“Fuck, Asha, I?—”
“No,” I whisper softly, pressing my fingertips to his jaw. “I need you to remember that vow.” I take a shaky breath. “I need to know that if I ever hurt someone innocent, you will do what others can’t.”
He’s shaking his head, but I persist. “You must cut this power from me. Promise me that.”
He growls at me. “You don’t command me, either.”
I allow myself to smile. “True.” I’m quiet for a moment. “But I know you will do what others won’t. I know you won’t shy away from something because it’s hard or will make you hated.”
When he gives me a reluctant nod, I take a deep breath and acknowledge a painful truth. “Neither of us will ever really have a clean slate.” I meet his eyes. “But we can start with each other.”
“We can,” he says, the tension leaving his body. “We already have.”
I smile against his chest, but my smile fades.
I may have found a balance with the medallion, but soon I will need to use it.
To end Milena, I will need to call on all the darkness it gives me.
Chapter32
At dawn, we gather up our things and resume our journey, but we stop following the stream and veer away from it to head west again.
