My truthwielding works on her.
Skies, itworkson her.
I draw back, leaving only a sliver of space between us. “Say it again,” I whisper, my lips skimming hers.
“I hate you.” Her voice is breathy and soft and sweet, but my neck prickles all the same.
She was telling the truth. She loves me. She fuckinglovesme. The wormbark oil—Skies fuck. Even then, she loved me. I stride toward the armchair, arm banded around my wife’s waist, tugging her into my lap as I sit down. I kiss her again, so hard our teeth clack together, tongue tracing the seam of her lips until she parts them for me.
She tastes divine, and I’ve missed her so, so fucking much. Open-mouthed kisses trailed down her neck, the sweet scent of frost and winter rose driving me insane. When she moans, my blood heats.
“Zev?” she whispers, chest heaving. “Not that I mind, but I’m … confused.”
“Do you. Want. Me. To stop?” I ask between kisses pressed to her soft lips.
“No.” I scrape my teeth along her collarbone, and she looses a sweet whimper that has me straining against my trousers. My lips find hers in another deep kiss, this one slow and languid, my tongue teasing hers. “Then let me savor this, baby.”
And she does.
I kiss her until she’s writhing in my lap, until her lips are swollen, until her chin and cheeks are scraped pink from my stubble. My hands have taken permanent residence in her hair, angling her face so I can kiss down her neck and lick the dip between her collarbones.
I’d kiss her for another hundred years if she let me.
When she’s a mewling, whimpering mess in my lap, I draw back and tuck her closer against my chest, drinking in her beautiful, flushed face. Those bright, blue eyes and high cheekbones, her faint smattering of freckles. I want to count each one and memorize them, map out constellations that are mine and mine alone.
Her chin quivers, eyes welling with tears.
I brush a tender kiss to her cheek. “My sweet Mayah,” I murmur. “I’ve been keeping a secret of my own.”
Chapter Seventy-Two
“I’matruthwielder.”Itfeels strange to say it, a truth I’ve never uttered—Lev figured it out on his own after I called his bluff one too many times.
Mayah blinks. “What?”
My lips curve into a slow smile at her endearingly confused expression.
“It’s my secondary ability. Lev and my mother were the only ones who knew. Tairna made sure I didn’t tell anyone.” The smile falls from my lips at the memory. “I was maybe eight. She had a bruise on her cheek. I asked what happened, and she said she had fallen. The back of my neck prickled so hard, I began scratching it. She asked what was wrong—when I told her, her face went pale.
“All those weeks alone with you, Mayah … and you never lied.” A lone tear slips down her cheek. “Not once. Most people lie within minutes of opening their mouths—women, soldiers, advisers.” My fingers skim the line of her jaw, a serrated chuckle sawing through me.
“But not you. Somehow, you managed not to lie once. My beautiful, clever,magnificentMayah. And Skies above, I fell in love with you—while I was dragging you to marry my brother.” My voice cracks, but I force myself to continue. “But the Skies favored me for some reason I’ll never understand.Imarried you. And I knew you didn’t love me. Not yet. But I hoped one day you would. That I’d wake one morning and find you gazing at me with affection in your eyes. With longing. Becauseyouwanted to, not out of a misplaced sense of duty or a need for survival. I hoped you’d fall in love withme.”
I choke on my truth. “And I thought maybe you had.”
Her eyes brim with unchecked sorrow, fingers curling in the collar of my tunic. “You wanted me. You let me hold you like you craved me, too. You reached for me in the dark, when you were half-asleep because you needed me close.”
My grip tightens around her waist. “But then I returned from the border and found you withhim…” The thud of her knees against the stone floor still rattles in my skull. Rage in her eyes, water at her fingertips. “My world shattered, Mayah.”
The memory is so fresh—her leg around his waist, fingers gripping his shoulder. It’s etched into my mind, and that image of them together still guts me, even now.
But her energy signature had told me she was agitated. Upset.
“I’d been wrong. So horribly, stupidly,hopelesslywrong. When you fell to your knees beside his body—Skies, the way you looked at him. The grief in your eyes. The rage. It gutted me.” Mayah presses deeper into me, her warmth a welcome balm against the pain clawing at my throat. “In that moment, I was ready to annul our marriage and send you back home. You didn’t love me. And I—” My tongue fumbles around the words. “I had just murdered the man you did. That felt like punishment enough.
“But then you turned on me. Attacked me withwater.” A bitter laugh escapes me. “And just like that, my world shattered again. Twice in the span of minutes.”
Another tear slips down her cheek.
