Briar
I SAT ON THE LEDGE OF THE THIRD-FLOOR WINDOW, MY FEET dangling in the open air. I didn’t even flinch when Maez appeared beside me. She wore a black cotton undershirt and her normal black leather trousers. Stripped of most of her weaponry, this was probably the most dressed down she would be.
“You’re not jumping now, are you?”
I let out a half laugh. “No.” My bare feet swung out over the open air, feeling light and tingling as I stared down at the massive drop. “And I know you would catch me.”
I felt Maez’s eyes on me, the weight of them skittering across my skin. “Always.”
“What does it feel like,” I asked, “flying through the air like you do?”
“I can show you,” she offered. I pursed my lips, not sure if I would find that exhilarating or terrifying. When it came to Maez it was usually both. “Already bored in this little place?”
I chuckled. “I wouldn’t exactly call this place little.” I looked up at the several stories towering above me and the two more below. “I don’t think I’ve explored even half of it yet. But . . .”
“But?”
I finally looked at her. Those dark pools of obsidian stared back, unblinking.
“What are we doing here, Maez?” I asked, shaking my head.
“Why have we buried our heads in the sand . . . or up in the clouds, as it were? Sweet Moon, do I wish that nothing existed outside these castle walls, but they do. We can’t pretend otherwise. ”
Her eyes dropped to my lips for a split second and then back out to the floating islands far in the distance and the sea of desert sand below, staring so far as if she could almost see Damrienn.
“When I heard that Nero had taken you . . .” Her voice drifted off as her expression grew more severe.
Most would only see the anger there, but I saw the fear beneath the surface, too.
“I think sometimes you forget that I had a life before we met,” she said.
I swallowed the lump in my throat. That wasn’t what I had expected her to say.
“I knew Evres as a pup. I knew what a bastard he was, his penchant for violence, his lust for control . . . but he is nothing, nothing compared to Nero.” She let out a long breath as if it pained her to release it.
“I had so many reasons why I grabbed that power from the air, grabbed that dark magic with two hands and didn’t let go.
And I would make that same choice a million times over to make sure all of the fears I had for you never came to fruition.
I would damn my very soul to keep you from being hurt by him the way I have been. ”
My heart plummeted. “What?” I practically choked on my words. “What did he do?”
Fear coursed through me like white-hot lightning.
Why had she never told me this story before?
Why was it only in this darkness and with this power that she finally felt she could speak these truths aloud to me?
I was her mate. But I knew the answer: some things are too terrifying to even admit to yourself. Maybe only now she could.
Maez took another steeling breath. “Being the niece of a king is a precarious position,” she said. “I think you know the roles we are given as highborn Wolf women better than anyone, the sacrifices we are forced to make.”
I was practically shaking, quivering with fear. I didn’t dare speak.
“Nero had plans for me,” she said, and bile rose up my throat. “The greatest benefit I could give him was for me to be sold to another. He had plans for all of us since the moments we were born. He used you to get Olmdere, Calla to get Valta, and me to get Taigos.”
“Taigos?” I breathed, panic gripping me.
“Ingrid’s uncle, Stellan.”
“But didn’t he die when you were—?”
“Thirteen,” she added. “Yes, he did. But not before . . .”
Ice filled my veins, my hands coiling into fists.
“Nero told him I was his, that he could have me whenever he wanted me,” she said and tears misted in my eyes, my heart cracking open. “Nero watched,” she added, half chuckle, half growl. “The sick bastard. I was lucky Stellan died before he could ever visit again.”
“Lucky . . .” I whispered as tears rolled down my cheeks.
“Grae was already away, studying in Valta,” Maez said.
“I never told him. The only person who knows other than Nero is Sadie.” Maez swallowed thickly, her voice still an even steel.
“And I’ll never forget what she told me.
She said that I had to be the very best soldier.
So undeniably powerful with my blade that Nero could not say no when I pledged my sword to Grae.
And even after Stellan died and Ingrid’s claim to her throne was further cemented, I never forgot that.
I had to be a warrior that Nero couldn’t lose to a foreign army.
I had to be worth more to him through my power than my body.
But I always lived in fear that he could take that away from me again. And no one would stop him.”
“You can stop him now,” I whispered, voice cracking. “When you took on this power, why didn’t you kill Nero straight away?”
“Because even monsters have ghosts, Princess,” she murmured, hanging her head. “I don’t want to face him. I don’t want to feel stripped so bare. Even with this power . . . I don’t want to feel like I’m thirteen again.”
I swiped at the tears on my cheeks. “Everything seemed so . . . fine,” I choked out. “You seemed so happy, carefree even when I met you. I knew your past was challenging; I knew from the stories you’d tell me, but this . . . You never told me this before.”
Maez held her head in her hands as she looked down at the straight drop. “You were too pure, Briar.” She swept her hair back and sat up to look at me. “I didn’t want to stain your beautiful soul.”
“I’m not pure anymore,” I whispered, looking at my hands as if I could still see the blood on them.
“I don’t want to be anymore. I want whatever we are to be one and the same.
” More tears spilled from my eyes and Maez reached out and wiped them away as if she couldn’t help herself.
“And I want to be the person who helps you kill him.”
“I don’t want to make you a villain.” Her eyes bracketed with pain. “But I will if you let me.” She wiped one more tear and moved to leave.
“Don’t,” I begged, reaching out for her and grabbing her elbow. “Please.”
She looked down at where my hand gripped her elbow.
“The moment I grabbed for this magic,” she said, green streaks of lightning hovering over her skin and tingling over my fingers.
“I felt strong. I feel strong, I feel unafraid, for the first time in my life.” She swallowed.
“Don’t ask me to come back from the way I feel now. I never want to feel powerless again.”
“I won’t.”
“This is a road you can’t follow me down, Briar,” she said. “I’ve been waiting for you to realize it. In your heart of hearts you are good; you wouldn’t choose to be a monster, a killer. I would. I have. And I’d choose it every time if it meant protecting you from the things I’ve seen.”
“Stop this.” I swung my legs back around and pushed into the room to meet her face-to-face. “I am not as good as you think I am.”
Maez’s eyes crinkled, endless amounts of heartbreak hiding behind those mirth-filled eyes. “Ask me to take you back to Calla.”
“No.”
“Ask me because I don’t have the strength to do what’s right for both of us on my own,” she said. “I will keep you here forever, destroying your sweetness just like the beasts I tried to save you from. You deserve so much more than this, than me. Please. Ask me to take you back.”
I couldn’t even make out her face, my vision was so blurry from tears. “No,” I cried. “I won’t go. I won’t leave you.”
Maez gently held me by the cheeks and dropped her forehead to mine. “You deserve to be happy, Briar.”
“I deserve you, only you,” I sobbed.
“Nobody deserves this,” she said vehemently.
“Exactly.” I squared my shoulders, meeting her frustration and anger with my own.
“You say that so easily. But you aren’t listening to me. This is who I am. Forever, Briar. I will not change, not even for you.”
“Forever, Maez,” I confirmed, ignoring the fact this wasn’t what she was saying. “You and me. I meant it then, and I mean it now. I know what I’m committing to.” I’m committing to you, I kept unspoken.
“You don’t. But you will.”
I pinned her with a defiant look, feeling a growing promise building within me. “I’m yours even in darkness. I will prove that to you.”
She pushed away from me and wiped a single stray tear from her eyes. “Then so be it,” she said and stormed away.