33. Ayna
Ayna
“I’m not going to ask you what the fuck you did to him,” Clio bites as she brings down her sword on mine.
Raising an eyebrow in question, I parry her strike, once again grateful for the extra speed and strength Vala and Shaelak gifted me when they decided to make me something more than human.
“I asked him , but he wouldn’t tell me. Tori, perhaps, if he pried. But your mate is a pretty private person, so my mate has the decency not to push him.” On light feet, she twirls away, lifting her sword as she leaps back a foot. “Technically, it would be your responsibility as his mate ”—she makes a dramatic pause, summoning ice to her free hand before she comes at me again—“to make sure he’s all right.”
“Can you please stop saying the word?” It’s hard enough to run into Myron at breakfast, lunch, and dinner, let alone every time I walk out of what should have been our shared bedroom into the living area connecting the suites of what’s left of our little group. Pouly and Andraya are missing, and Clio and Tori have their own rooms in the palace, of course, but the rest of us returned to the same quarters Recienne assigned us in the first place.
“ Mate ?” She gives me a deadly grin right before hauling her magic at me. “What’s wrong with the word mate ?”
Crystals of snow and ice dance around me in a tornado ready to sweep me up and carry me away. Perhaps I should let it.
It’s been another four days since the attack. Four days since Myron acknowledged he’d never stop waiting for me. He hasn’t forced a conversation, merely greeted me with those eyes that promise the waves of the ocean. My heart opens into a ravine of despair every time our gaze meets, and my stomach empties into a pit.
“Nothing.” I’m not sure Clio hears me over the thunder of her power, but she grimaces and pushes harder.
“Your mate asked me about your progress. I assume he meant with training, but I’m not entirely sure that’s what he’s really desperate to know.” The expectant half-tilt of her head as she watches me stand idly at the center of her blizzard tells me she’s waiting for me to demonstrate that progress .
With a sigh, I pull on the silver power I’ve been cultivating over the past days since Clio showed up on my threshold, ready in battle leathers and the words, “Time for wallowing is over.”
From the settee in the corner of the common room, Silas shrugged at me and Herinor echoed the sentiment with a grim set of his features—basically his usual expression, but it seemed extra-dark that day.
Myron wasn’t there, and I didn’t ask where he’d gone.
She hasn’t failed to pick me up for training at the exact same time every day since. A part of me is grateful for the push, for making me forget the wound on my shoulder that has gone numb even when it hasn’t made any progress at healing, and for the time spent in company where no one asks how I’m doing, how the bond is progressing. If I can feel him again or if things are still … awkward. That’s the question I fear most. Especially from the males. It draws my eyes to their muscles, to their broad shoulders, their handsome features, makes me wonder what it would feel like to have their hands on me?—
“Askarea to Ayna!” Clio shouts, sending a ball of snow right at my face that rushes down my throat so fast I nearly choke on it. “Stop fucking around and defend yourself.”
“I’m not fucking around .” Even though I wish I were. Gods… the guard Recienne insists on sending after me wherever I go is extra handsome today. Whether the Fairy King doesn’t trust me or is simply concerned about what I’ll do in my condition, I haven’t bothered to find out.
“Perhaps the snow isn’t enough to cool you down.” Clio’s part-amusement, part-annoyance should hurt. Instead, all it does is make me wish I’d never been born .
“I didn’t do anything to him.” With a blast of my Crow magic, I send Clio’s ice storm hurtling across the arena, right into the stone wall closest to the palace.
The guard shifts at his post but doesn’t glance my way, eyes on the grounds outside the arena and following his assignment.
“Who are we talking about?” Clio reels in the ice, her power leaving a trail of frost where it touches. “Myron or Garrison?” Her gaze follows mine, landing on the male’s shoulders.
“Certainly not Garrison,” I huff. “I didn’t do anything to Myron either.”
For a heartbeat, Clio eyes me like she’s about to burst out with laughter. Then she seems to remember this is serious, and I’m not choosing to be attracted to anything on two legs that features a dick. “Perhaps that ’s the problem.”
“What do you mean?” I rally more of my power, readying to strike before she calls me out for not having practiced.
“Perhaps you should be doing something to him.”
“Like what?”
Clio rolls her eyes, sending a snowball flying. I bat it away with a flick of my fingers. Crow magic seems to channel easier when I’m uncomfortable, humiliated, and generally awkward, but hey, I’ll take whatever works. When Erina brings his armies to the border, I’ll thank Clio for every annoying question and every moment of discomfort she’s caused during these training lessons.
“Like throw him on his back and ride him like a stallion.”
I choke on my breath. For the blink of an eye, I can see it: Myron’s powerful body sprawled across the night- blue silk covering the bed meant for both of us, his muscles taut with coiled-up pleasure as I move on top of him. Heat shoots up my legs, straight to my core, but when I try to think of his face, of the black half-moons of his lashes when he closes his eyes, the deep moan parting his lips… My chest locks up, and the wound on my shoulder comes to life, cutting off any romantic thought I could have been capable of.
Perhaps I should be grateful I’m still feeling something —even when it’s pain.
“You don’t just throw a Crow male on his back. They’re too strong.” Kaira chimes in from the side.
I didn’t notice her joining us, but now that she’s here, my head automatically turns to scan the arena for Herinor.
“You’ve tried?” Clio teases, and Kaira—Guardians help her—blushes.
“In training?” Why she phrases it like a question, only the deities of the realms know.
Clio finally does explode with laughter, but she doesn’t comment.
“Myron is with Herinor and Royad, by the way.”
Of course, my sister would think I’m searching for Myron, not the hulk of a Crow who follows her around like a puppy.
Instead of reacting, I send another strike of silver power at Clio, savoring the release of pressure that has been building in my chest as it flows from my palms. She blocks it with her blade this time, dispersing my power like little stars that rain down along her shield .
“ You don ’ t care what he ’ s doing?” Kaira prompts in my mind, the only one who has such deep insight into my mind when I occasionally forget my shield. “ Hasn ’ t it been long enough? Silas said the un-mating phase should pass quicker for you, based on how long you refused to communicate with anyone. Ten days. He said, for him, it was ten years. ” She chuckles as if Silas lusting after every skirt in the realm was something funny. “ It should pass fast.”
The next blow I land on Clio’s shield tears a crack into it. The female staggers back with surprise.
“Well done, Ayna. You’re learning more control by the day.”
It’s more like I’m losing more control by the day with every male taunting me with his mere presence. Every male but Myron. He’s my mate, yet I can’t fathom touching him. I can’t even think of his lips on mine…
The taste of earth and moss and the salt of the winds above the sea coat my tongue, fill my lungs, a soft pair of lips grazing the side of my neck. Black strands of hair tickle my cheek, the sensitive skin along my collarbone and my sternum as he moves down inch by inch. Heat blows over my peaked nipple, sending a flare of fire through my core.
I ’ m liquid starlight floating on the ocean, no, fire. I ’ m fire. And my body is alive with desire.
“ I ’ m not sitting front row in your daydreams, Ayna.” Kaira’s reprimand quenches the warmth between my legs, and I could swear the earth is taunting me with the tiny puffs of dust rising as I shift my feet in request for it to finally do its task and swallow me.
“ I ’ m not daydreaming. ”
“ Definitely not.” Kaira shoots me a grin. “ And most definitely not about Myron.”
Groaning my frustration, I lift my dagger, coating it in silver power as I lift it over my head and attack.
Clio is ready. Of course, she is. That female is never flabbergasted by my shifting moods and seemingly random attacks. As if she has a sixth sense for what it means to be in a weird place with her mate.
Perhaps I should ask her sometime.
“ If you ’ ve come to annoy me, you can turn around and leave right now.” I don’t even look at Kaira, channeling my anger and embarrassment into my magic instead.
Clio whoops her approval when I crack her shield wide open with the next blow.
“You’ve been secretly practicing, admit it.” A laugh bubbles up her throat, spilling into the arena like wind chimes.
I hate the cheerfulness of her tone. Hate how I want to laugh with her.
I’m supposed to be mourning my mate.
I can barely think the word.
He’s not lost for me. Not in the way of a true un-mating. He’s still there, inside me. Yet, I can’t sense the bond. I can’t tug on our connection and summon a flicker of the emotions I’m used to.
It’s overwhelming and the dryness of a desert both at once.
I still have a mate. Why am I going through the un-mating symptoms?
“I thought you’d never ask.” Tori steps into the arena, a shadow in wicked blue and dark brown garments of the finest making. His auburn hair is tied back at the nape of his neck, and his eyes sparkle with the glimmer of the sun.
“Get the fuck out of my mind.”
Kaira attempts a response of outrage, but Tori is faster.
“Not a chance, Ayna.” He stalks to Clio, pressing a kiss to her temple, fingers delving into her hair in such a proprietary way I believe he’s marking his territory so the guard won’t take a wrong glance at Clio, but that’s not it. Not at all. I can see the warning in his eyes when he finally lets go of his mate and approaches me with arms crossed over his chest. He ’s reminding me he’s not fair game, no matter what the un-mating process is doing with me.
“Silas warned me you might be asking exactly that question.” He jerks his head at the stack of logs at the edge of the arena, where I sat with Silas the first day I left my room, and starts walking.
Kaira and Clio follow, leaving me with the choice to remain where I am and ogle the guard, or join them.
I do the latter, climbing onto the edge of the lowest log and sheathing my daggers.
“Did he have an answer, or was he merely being a smartass?”
That costs Tori a chuckle, Clio a frown, and Kaira a twist of her lips.
“He’s suffered through true un-mating. Don’t make fun of something you can’t begin to fathom.”
“ I ’m not fathoming this?” I glance around, pretending to be checking whether there’s someone else he might be talking to. “If I remember correctly, I’m the one whose mate mark has been burned away and who’s now going through exactly what Silas predicted .
The patience innate in Askarea’s general must be Guardians-given because I can’t begin to think the things I’d already have done had someone else acted the way I’m acting.
I can’t help it, though. My body is a battlefield of a different kind, and if the mating bond is still there, my heart must have been ripped out.
“It takes time,” Tori said, eyes sincere and full of compassion. “And you’re not the only one suffering.”
He leaves it at that, even when I want to demand if Myron is in pain, physically the way I am, or if he means heartbreak. I want to ask. Want to know every last detail, yet I can’t bring myself to open my mouth.
“Talk to him,” Tori merely says. “No one knows better the ways he’s suffering than him.”
That takes all anger, all annoyance, all distraught emotions right out of me, and I inflate. “What if he no longer wants me?”
The words scatter on a breeze like they’ve never been spoken, and I hope they’ll never make it past the walls of this arena, but Tori lifts his gaze to the entrance where the guard has left his post, replaced by a figure in black leathers and the gravest face I’ve seen since I watched the inmates of Fort Perenis marched to the gallows.
Myron inclines his head at me. It’s all he does, but it sends a storm through the wasteland that is my heart.
My hand lifts on its own accord in a small wave. It’s more than I want to do and so much less than what he deserves.
“Maybe Silas doesn’t have all the answers to your questions,” Clio says as she locks her fingers with Tori, and together, they stand from the logs. Kaira hops off the tree trunks, holding out her hand to Clio as if begging.
“Take me with you when you go, will you?”
Clio’s fingers close around hers, and together, they site-hop away, leaving me alone with the one person I fear most.