Chapter 82
Chapter Eighty-Two
“I’m a truthwielder.”
I blink. “What?”
He smiles at me, a real smile, not a feral baring of his teeth or a vicious curve of his lips, but an actual smile laced with affection—the one he used to save just for me.
My heart stutters.
“It’s my secondary ability. Lev and my mother were the only ones who knew.
Tairna made sure I didn’t tell anyone.” His smile fades.
“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.”
Heart- and truthwielders are put to death as soon as they’re discovered.
Even children?
Especially children.
“All those weeks alone with you, Mayah … and you never lied.” His voice is soft, aching. “Not once. Most people lie within minutes of opening their mouths—women, soldiers, advisers.” He lets out a quiet, bitter chuckle, his fingers skimming the line of my jaw.
“But not you. Somehow, you managed not to lie once. My beautiful, clever, magnificent Mayah. And Skies above, I fell in love with you—while I was dragging you to marry my brother.”
His voice breaks, and my heart twists.
“But the Skies favored me for some reason I’ll never understand.
I married 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. Because you wanted to, not out of a misplaced sense of duty or a need for survival. I hoped you’d fall in love with me.”
A beat of silence.
“And I thought maybe you had.” His thumb brushes the corner of my mouth. “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.
“But then I returned from the border and found you with him…” The memory splinters his gravelly voice. “My world shattered, Mayah.”
He swallows hard, like he’s forcing jagged glass down his throat.
“I’d been wrong. So horribly, stupidly, hopelessly wrong.
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.
” He pauses, his breath shallow, eyes glistening.
“In that moment, I was ready to annul our marriage and send you back home. You didn’t love me.
And I—” His voice thins, fingers tight around my chin.
“I had just murdered the man you did. That felt like punishment enough.”
His hand drops from my face.
“But then you turned on me. Attacked me with water.” He laughs, low and bitter. “And just like that, my world shattered again. Twice in the span of minutes.”
The laugh dies in his throat. His next words are soft, almost afraid.
“I thought my truthwielding didn’t work on you. That everything we’d shared—every kiss, every touch, every confession—had been a lie. How else could you have kept so much from me? I kept replaying every moment, searching for cracks. Trying to see how you’d fooled me so skiesdamned thoroughly.”
“That’s why you said you’d never trust me again,” I whisper.
He nods, pressing his forehead to mine. “All those months, not a single lie. Not one. And then just now…” His breath hitches. “When you said you hated me—it didn’t just prickle, Mayah. It felt like someone raked a blade down my spine.”
A broken sob tears free. Zev catches it with a deep kiss, pulling me harder against the solid wall of his chest.
“Tell me another lie, baby,” he whispers against my lips.
“I never want to see you again,” I breathe, raking my fingers through his soft hair. “I want you to leave. I—I don’t love you.”
Harsh tremors ripple through him. And then his mouth crashes into mine, hungry and heartbroken.
When he draws back, his voice is wrecked. “You were telling the truth,” he says hoarsely. “When you said you wanted me. When you said you’d miss me.” A broken chuckle. “When you said you love my broody scowl. The wormbark oil. Everything. You. Love. Me.”
I nod, sobbing freely now. He wipes my tears away with aching care. His thumb brushes my lower lip. His eyes darken, body rigid against mine.
“Every time I close my eyes, Mayah, I see you on your knees—beside him. My Mayah. My wife.”
“Are you still mad?” I breathe into the heated air between us.
“Yeah, baby. I’m still mad.” His fingers fist in my hair, yanking my head back.
“But I’m going to get it all out now. Every last bit.
And then we’ll never speak of it again.” Anger flashes in his eyes, but there’s also a heady heat swirling in his gray gaze.
His fingers tighten in my hair almost to the point of pain.
“I gave you all of me, Mayah. I loved—love—you. My life’s been split down the middle: before you and after you.
Before you, I was merely existing. Going through the motions.
Alone. A fucking shell. But after you?” He looses a rueful chuckle.
“After you, there’s only you. Since our journey, it’s only ever been you.
Every moment spent thinking about you, aching for you, loving you.
And then … everything came crashing down around me. You were with him when you were mine.”
He takes a deep, shuddering breath. “But even then, you were still mine, weren’t you, baby?
When you were convinced my kingdom was responsible for your mother’s death, when you were planning a skiesdamned coup under my nose, when you left Tundrayn in love with another man. The wormbark oil was for me.”
He phrases it like a question, and I nod quickly.
“And when I returned from the border, you were planning to tell me everything.”
“Yes,” I whisper, head still arched back in his punishing grip.
“And I would’ve helped you. I’d have helped you kill them all,” he admits, his voice low and dark.
“Without a second thought. You didn’t fucking need him.
Because I’ve always been yours. I have been since I met you.
And you need to decide now. Because you’re either mine or you’re not.
And if you choose to be mine, Mayah—” He wrenches my head back farther, and a soft whimper escapes my lips.
“I won’t be kind. I won’t be gentle. I’m going to ruin you, the way you ruined me.
You will spend your nights, your mornings, any moment I can get my hands on you, begging for a mercy that will never come.
You’re going to ache for me, Mayah. The way I’ve been aching for you since that first night you slapped me across the face. ”
I drag in a quivering breath, fingers trailing along the sharp edge of his jaw, committing every detail to memory.
“I think,” I murmur, “it’s time we consummate our marriage.”
He leans back just enough to look me over, voice both sharp and soft, like a velvet blade. “Take off your clothes,” he growls, “and wait for me on the bed.”
I scramble off his lap, shucking off my tunic and leggings before climbing onto the thin mattress.
By the time I’m settled, Zev’s disappeared into the washroom, and the sound of running water greets my ears.
Anticipation skitters along my spine, through every nerve of my body. Tides, I’ve wanted this for months.
Except Zev takes the longest shower in the history of showers. In the history of man, really. I debate wielding the water into ice, but I don’t think that’d go over well.
By the time the water shuts off, I’m practically crawling out of my skin.
My husband emerges from the washroom with damp hair, water droplets clinging to his bare torso.
A rush of desire pulses through my core as my eyes drink him in, all tanned skin and cut muscles.
His molten gaze rakes over me. My skin pebbles beneath his heated appraisal.
A slow, wicked smile unfurls across his lips.
The kind that promises pain and pleasure all at once.
Despite all his threats of making me ache, Zev is exceedingly gentle with me.
Whispers of I love you so fucking much in my ears. Sweet, tender kisses feathered all over my face and jaw. Sweat-slicked skin, hot kisses on my neck, fingers laced tightly above my head. A murmured you’re so fucking perfect.
Slow, deep thrusts and I’m so sorry, baby.
Pressed foreheads, swallowed moans, soft promises.
He eases me through the pain, coaxing it into pleasure.
I unravel in his arms, a shuddering pool of electric nerves.
My husband is gentle and kind and sweet.
All the things he swore he wouldn’t be.
The first time.
I’ve barely caught my breath, skin still tingling with pleasure, when he flips me onto my stomach and then, Tides, does he ruin me.
Rough hands twisting in my hair, yanking my head back.
A rumbling you’re mine, only mine, all fucking mine.
Sharp bites on my earlobe, purpling bruises sucked into my skin.
Demanding fingers on my hips, pulling me back harder against him. Say my name. Say my fucking name, growled into my flesh over and over again until I forget my own. The imprint of his large hand might be permanently tattooed around my throat.
Take it. Take everything I give you.
He reduces me to a mewling, whimpering, aching mess.
And still, I’m not ruined enough.
I beg for mercy, but it never comes. Just like he promised.
I come, though. Again and again and again.
He wrings another earth-shaking scream from me, until I’m writhing on the bed, scrambling away, but he drags me back, spreading me open before him like a feast until I lose all sense of myself.
With tears on my cheeks and his name on my lips, he makes me shatter for what must be the sixth time. I’m limp on the damp mattress, still quivering from aftershocks as he kisses his way up my body, then gathers me into his strong arms.
A contented hum escapes my swollen lips, and I nestle deeper into him. “I love you,” I mumble against his chest, only half coherent. “You’ve thoroughly ruined me.”
A deep masculine chuckle vibrates beneath my cheek, his fingers tracing long, firm lines against my side.
My body stills.
A horrifying, breath-stopping, blood-freezing thought crosses my mind. What if this was his goodbye?
“Zev,” I whisper, all vestiges of sleep chased away by panicked terror. “You’ll—you’ll stay, right?”
His silence nearly undoes me.
“Say something.”
He doesn’t.
Instead, he rises from the bed and rifles in his satchel.
“Zev?” My voice cracks like a thin sheet of ice.
Thank the Tides he returns to bed and draws me back into his arms.
A relieved breath sags through me as I melt into him.
“Yeah,” he murmurs, grasping my hand and sliding his ring back onto my finger. The teardrop diamond winks in the lantern light. It fits perfectly, as if I’d worn it all along. Zev kisses my palm and holds it against his stubbled cheek. “Yeah, baby, I’ll stay.”