Chapter 37
I kept my eyes down as the doors closed behind us and the glow of the mirror leaves spilled across the room.
I climbed onto the bed and lay back slowly, curling toward the center. Blake followed without a word, settling behind me, wrapping his arms around my waist. His heartbeat was steady against my back, his warmth surrounding me like a shield. I held on to his forearm, fingers tightening.
“I saw her.” My voice cracked. “My mother. I think. In the tree. In the mirrors.”
He didn’t speak, just pressed a kiss to my shoulder. I breathed in through my nose and went on.
“She was holding me. Singing, maybe. There was so much love…I could feel it. I didn’t even know how much I missed her until she disappeared again. It was like losing her all over. And then the Annihilation—” I broke off, my throat tight.
His arms stayed firm, grounding me.
“I wasn’t running like everyone else. I was pushing through the crowd. Clawing. Fighting to go back.” My breath hitched. “I guess I was trying to get back to her, but I don’t know who else I’ve lost.”
Sobs shuddered out of me now, and I didn’t even try to hide them. “Blake, I don’t know who I am. I don’t belong anywhere. There is so little that anchors me, and I’m so afraid of losing that, too.”
Blake didn’t say anything right away. His hand curled protectively around the back of my head, fingers sliding into my hair. He whispered, “You won’t lose me.”
I turned toward him slowly, burying my face in his chest. His breathing was steady and strong. I tried to match my own breath to it, to believe him as I calmed. To believe in the warmth of his body, in the safety of his arms.
I flinched when I heard a rustling of leaves above us. I didn’t look up. I couldn’t.
Blake nodded against my temple. “You don’t have to sleep here tonight. Come to my rooms,” he said. “There are no mirrors there.”
I hesitated. The idea of seeing whatever the gods had revealed about his soul, like they had done with mine, made me shiver. That he would trust me so much.
“Are you sure?” I asked, my voice barely audible.
He kissed the corner of my mouth, then my cheek.
“You need rest, Rubi. And I prefer you in my bed anyway.”
My cheek burned, the kiss he left there searing like a brand.
“But I—”
He tilted his mouth to my ear. “Don’t lie to yourself or to me. You want to be in my bed just as badly, hm?”
It was a taunt, that same teasing voice that had helped me out of my own head, my too-heavy emotions, in Yvonne’s kitchen. The dare in his wicked voice set me alight.
I couldn’t resist the call of him. I didn’t want to.
—
His bedroom wasn’t messy.
It was darker than mine. The bed dominated the space, large and heavy, made of black steel with a carved ironwood frame.
The posts were shaped into flowing figures of tygers, each one different: one sleeping with its head on its paws; one crouched, teeth bared; one lying broken, its body only half sculpted.
It didn’t feel like decoration.
It felt like memory.
Above the bed, where a canopy might be, a sphere of dark metal hovered in the air.
Its surface was forged from thin strands of iron that curled and wound in on itself.
Inside, faint points of starlight glowed and shifted.
The light moved slowly, forming shapes that flickered in and out of view.
I saw tygers pacing. I saw swords. I saw a man curled around something I couldn’t see, locked in place.
The whole thing moved gently, opening a little, then closing again like it was breathing.
A living sculpture, shaped into a cage.
Another taunt, this time at Blake: a prison of his own making. His magic, and his mind. The pieces of himself he rarely let out. The stars inside didn’t feel like hope. They felt like something lost.
I looked up. There was no ceiling, only a sky that couldn’t be real, stretched out in every direction, black and endless and full of stars that pulsed too brightly to be natural.
They shimmered like they were watching. After a moment, they began to shift, the constellations changing into new shapes. A chain. A blade. A burning city. The stars dissolved into silver smoke before reappearing in a different pattern.
It was as beautiful as it was unsettling. And yet it didn’t seem to bother Blake.
A meal had been set on a low table. Steam rose from several woven lids, inviting tendrils of fragrant heat into the air, mingling with the scents of jasmine and green tea.
We lifted the lids to find freshly steamed, pillowy soft buns filled with savory minced chicken, mushrooms, and a hint of ginger.
Small dishes of soy sauce and black vinegar, with slivers of fresh ginger, sat nearby for dipping.
In another basket, perfectly folded savory crepes were laid out, the crispy outer layer hiding a filling of egg, green onions, and plum sauce, topped with sesame seeds for a bit of crunch.
We ate on the floor while Blake distracted me with stories about his youth, with his brother and Yvonne, before her lack of power had sent her into hiding.
He told me how Zayden had once convinced him to sneak a tyger cub into their rooms and how it had shredded half his clothing when they hid it in a closet.
He said Yvonne wove grass and flowers into homes for beetles and ants and that she had an uncanny knack for healing every wounded bird she found.
He told me about the Octagon, the families who battled for power and the strange—though normal to him—way he’d been raised, memorizing everyone’s Average before he could read, being made to duel Zayden before they were even strong enough to truly hold a weapon.
He told me of his Bonding with Kingsolver, his voice filled with tenderness, and of the many times he and his tyger had saved each other.
And then he grew more solemn, the lightness slowly disappearing as he stared down at his hands on the thick rug, brow furrowing.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, setting down my glass of amber, glittering rice wine.
He shook his head. “I thought I’d be happy, I guess, to be here. To be a part of something that might change everything for our people more immediately than the Ironstorm. To have a chance to avenge my brother. But I…”
The air was thick, fraught with something that made my stomach tighten.
“But every time I think about the days to come, about exactly what we face, the only thing I feel is fear.”
Blake looked at me then, his eyes intense swirling pools of blue fire as he stared at me. My breath caught.
“I’m fucking terrified to lose you, Rubi.”
The confession hung in the air.
“Blake—”
“I’m not—” He cut himself off with a gruff noise, shaking his head as if to clear it.
“I’m not asking you to feel the way that I feel, only to say that I can’t help it.
I need you to be safe. I need you to survive this.
And that—that alone is enough to terrify me.
” A strange, unhappy grin pulled his mouth up distortedly.
“Enough to make me hate myself for putting you in that damn Arena in the first place.”
“Don’t,” I said forcefully, crawling forward on my knees to sit just inches from his lap. “Blake—I don’t regret it. None of it. Without that day, I wouldn’t have Flame. Or Calla. Or a chance to reclaim my memories. Or…or you.”
His eyes searched mine.
I smiled as I climbed over the muscled expanse of his thighs and into his lap.
“Kiss me.”
Showing off the hard-earned strength of his thighs and glutes, he stood, keeping me tucked in his arms. I squealed, wrapping my legs around his waist as he walked steadily, with ease as if I weighed nothing, then lowered me to his bed and pressed me back into the sheets.
“Blake,” I breathed, overcome—by him, by this feeling expanding out from my heart, lighting up my whole body. My soul.
He exhaled sharply, eyes searching mine again as he brushed a strand of hair behind my ear, then trailed his fingers down my cheek, my neck, my collarbone, until his caress dipped beneath my tunic, causing my breath to catch.
“I never stood a chance of resisting you,” he said, “my songbird.”
Blake’s voice was strained, as if he were holding himself together by sheer will. He bent over me, his breath hot against my neck, his body taut with restraint. Restraint he didn’t need with me.
I felt my nipples tighten and arched up to graze them against his hard chest through the thin fabric of our tunics, the friction sending a shiver down my spine.
I raised my leg higher, over the indent of his muscular hip, and he caught my thigh, pulling me closer, slotting our bodies together perfectly.
“Please,” I begged.
Blake’s hands—rough, calloused, made for wielding metal—clasped my wrists, pinning them above my head.
I gasped as he growled, a deep sound that sent a tremor through me.
His body pressed flush against mine, his weight pinning me to the bed, and I could feel every hard inch of him—the thick, unyielding length of him pressing against my wet heat even with our clothes in the way.
Instead of pressing into me further, he pulled back and kissed me with a tenderness that stole my breath.
His lips were soft, brushing mine, his tongue gently tasting.
I felt precious, cared for, suddenly breakable.
But I would not break. I felt a storm overcome me, a desire so powerful all I could do was ride the wave.
Sensing the shift in me, Blake stepped back and ripped away at my clothes while I did the same to him.
I only managed his shirt, his pants still on as he dove back over me.
I was lost in the melody that stirred my blood, the instinct to wrap him up and make him mine. His power rose up and bent around my magic, caging me.
I could feel it. Him. Us.
There was a desperation then, to be tied to him, locked together.