Chapter 3
Chapter Three
I throw myself at Weston, fueled by an instinct that directs my muscles without needing input from my brain.
The hatchet spins, a lethal whirl of steel, and I shout a silent prayer. I’m close enough now to cancel Weston’s luck, but that means he’s canceled mine, too.
Whatever happens next comes down to chance.
In another situation, that might feel thrilling. Freeing. But right now, someone’s stripped me of my armor and pressed a dagger to my breast.
Maybe they’ll stab me, maybe they won’t.
Our bodies collide. Weston staggers. We go tumbling, my skirts a flurry of taffeta and lace. I land squarely on top of him, our faces inches apart.
His eyes widen as he gazes up at me. I brace, awaiting the bite of a blade in my back, but a dull thunk sounds somewhere behind me. When I turn, the hatchet glints, its head buried so deeply in the floor that a fresh split runs down the plank.
My pulse squeezes. Weston was standing there a moment ago. Right there.
“Birdie,” he whispers. “What’re you doing?”
I turn back, but he’s no longer looking at my face. His gaze jumps from my arms to my collarbones, then to the swell of my bosom. He catalogs every inch of exposed skin, a frantic light shining in his eyes.
But my dress has cushioned my fall, my splayed skirts sandwiched between us. My palms sting against the rough floorboards, but no part of me touches any part of him. Not directly, at least. And directly is what matters.
When he realizes it, his gaze flicks up to mine again. For the second time in as many moments, my mind empties of thought.
Fortuna’s blessings, I’ve never been this close to him before. Never realized he has gold flecks nestled amid the amber of his irises.
For a breathless moment, we just stare at one another. The crowd has fallen silent. All eyes take our measure, frozen as we are in our precarious position on the floor.
Then Weston gives a sharp shake of his head, as if clearing his thoughts. “Off. You have to get off.”
“I’m fine,” I say.
“You’re not.” Panic laces his voice. “I could touch you. I could hurt you.”
When I don’t move, he levers himself upward, careful not to brush against me. His broad shoulders flex with the effort of supporting both our weights.
Before he can fully rise, his opponent strides over and grips my elbow, hauling me to my feet. Weston shoots the man a look that’s half glower, half gratitude .
Something about that tears me down the middle. For so long, I’ve told myself he would come for me. I’ve held out hope that someday, we would profess our feelings, and when we did, we’d put this decade of enforced distance behind us. We’d throw the rules out the window. Set each other free. Live as a man and wife are meant to.
Weston could have achieved that so easily just now. He could have laid an unseen finger against my wrist. Held on until our triquetras faded, never to return.
But he looks petrified by the near miss. So terrified of unraveling my luck that he’d rather see some other man’s hands on me than his own.
I gulp down the knot of emotion blocking my throat. Stupid. This is stupid. I almost lost him just now, and here I am, wallowing in self-pity.
Weston brushes himself off, then scans me. His expression darkens. “You’re hurt.”
I glance down. A shard of wood has pierced my forearm and now leaks a trickle of blood. But it barely hurts. Not compared to the disappointment currently taking a bite out of my heart.
“It’s nothing,” I say.
He scowls. “It’s not nothing.”
I shoot a pointed look at the hatchet buried not two feet from where he’s standing. “It could have been worse.”
“Yes.” His brows lower as his temper rises. “It could have. You could’ve been killed. And for what, Birdie? What’re you even doing here?”
I reel back, stung. For what? For what? Is he serious?
The man who picked me up off the floor leans close. “ There’s antiseptic in my office,” he says softly. “You’re welcome to use it, Miss Bria.”
I blink at him. He looks vaguely familiar—black hair, blue eyes, sturdy features that fall just short of handsome. His name is Calder, I think, and he’s the mill’s foreman. I also think he offered Brendan half a year’s pay for the privilege of marrying me.
I cut my gaze away, not wanting to look at him. I don’t want to look at any of them. Not right now.
“Come on.” Weston’s tone is gruff. Something in his expression shutters. “Let’s clean you up.”
He spins on his heel and starts toward the back of the mill, clearly expecting me to follow.
Which I do, more out of frustration than any sense of obedience. The crowd parts to avoid Weston, even though with me close on his heels, his bad luck won’t overflow onto anyone else.
For a moment, I wonder what that feels like. To have the entire world recoil as you pass.
Does Weston even notice, anymore?
He leads me to a dingy back office. He shuts the door, muting the murmurs from outside.
“What the hell were you thinking?” he growls, rounding on me. “You could’ve died.”
My pulse kicks, anger singing in the spaces between heartbeats. “Me? Me? What about you? That thing would’ve fallen on you, if not for me. Why on earth didn’t you tell me you were fighting tonight? Why would you even agree to this without making sure I’d be here to nullify your Mark?”
“Why?” Golden eyes flash. “ Why? Is that a real question? ”
“Of course it is,” I spit.
He crosses his arms over his glorious chest. “Come on, Birdie, why do you think?”
“I don’t know!” My words carry a bite, and I press my tongue against the roof of my mouth to stem my rising fury. He could have been hurt. He could have been killed . Nulls rarely live as long as Weston already has, and knowing he tempted fate tonight makes me want to hit him.
He makes an irate sound, but something deeper than anger shimmers in his eyes. “You should know. Because you’re not a thing. You’re not some tool for me to just...use at my convenience. You’re a person. With your own life. And you were supposed to be busy tonight.”
That shuts me up. It’s everything I dream of hearing, but right now, the words only bloom cold in my bloodstream.
He was avoiding me today. On purpose.
“Busy,” I say icily. “What would I be busy with?”
“Making plans. With Brendan.” He slants his gaze away. “Choosing who to say yes to.”
For a moment, I can’t breathe. I wanted so badly to believe he’d forgotten. That he would’ve remembered tomorrow and come. “You knew,” I say, unable to wipe the hurt from my voice. “You knew what today was, and you chose to come here .”
His brows pull together. “Of course I did. Where else would I have gone?”
My chin trembles and my eyes sting, but I push the reaction down. All these years, I’ve imagined I glimpsed the same longing in him that I harbor in my own heart. Time and again, he’s brought me books. He’s shattered men’s bones for the sake of my reputation. Those amber eyes have tracked me across the room a thousand times without cutting away.
That can’t have meant nothing, can it?
When I don’t answer, his scowl deepens. “Where else would I have gone, Bria?”
A hurt sound sneaks from my throat. He never calls me Bria. With him, I’m Birdie, always Birdie, ever since that time I was fifteen and he was sixteen and we came across a hatchling fallen from its nest. I brought the bird home and spent weeks nourishing it on a diet of milk-soaked bread. On the day I set it free, Weston declared me such a capable nursemaid that I must be part bird myself.
“Don’t call me that,” I say.
“Where else would I have gone?” he repeats, his tone dark.
“You could’ve come,” I snap. The quiver in my voice betrays me, but I can’t hold back. I’m too angry. Too wounded. Too...everything. “You could’ve asked . You’re the only man who didn’t.”
He freezes. “Asked? Asked what?”
I mash my lips together.
He starts toward me, then thinks better of it and stops. Every line of his body pulls taut, his stillness so profound that it gives the impression he’s trembling. “Asked. What?”
The moment holds, pivoting around that question. But I won’t repeat myself. I can’t . This represents an overture neither of us has made before, and he has to give me something. I can’t bridge this gap on my own.
At my silence, Weston rakes a hand through his sweat-dampened blond hair. His eyes drop to the line of red at my wrist before snapping back up.
Without a word, he retrieves a rag and a brown glass bottle of antiseptic from a shelf. He sets them on the desk and pushes them toward me, then snatches his fingers back the second I reach out.
His withdrawal hurts. It shouldn’t, but it does, and before my grip can close around the bottle, I pause. I can’t seem to muster the courage to ask for what I want, but I can’t just walk away. Because this is it. Our last chance.
After a moment’s hesitation, I extend my arm, exposing the jutting splinter. “You do it.”
“What?” Weston’s eyes flare. “No. I can’t.”
I step closer. He flinches but doesn’t back up, just levels me with his usual intensity, the kind that makes the air boil in my lungs. This close, his face is a collection of sharp angles, his eyes the color of a sunbeam slanting through honey.
Except, no, nothing about Weston is sweet. Better compare those eyes to whiskey—to that priceless bottle stored on the highest shelf, the one I never should’ve taken down, because now that I’ve suffered its bite, I can’t stop drinking.
“Don’t ask me that, Birdie,” he murmurs. All the anger from a moment ago bleeds out of him, leaving him hoarse. “One touch, and I’d strip you of your luck. Forever. You know that.”
“And I’d strip you of yours,” I say, just as quietly. “Don’t act like that would be a bad thing.”
“It would, for you.”
“But not for you.”
He chokes down a swallow before his attention drifts to my mouth. And I feel it—the familiar thickening that coils between us, that rope of heat that binds us together. It’s real, isn’t it? It has to be. So is the rawness of this moment, because when we stand close like this, I’m just a woman. He’s just a man. The Charm and the Null have faded, leaving two ordinary people.
“What’re you asking me?” he whispers.
“To...” I gulp down the raw burn scalding my throat. Now or never. Fortuna help me. “...touch me.”
His brows pinch and his eyes slam closed. When he opens them again, his expression suggests I’ve just rammed a knife into his gut.
“Curses,” he says. “You know I can’t.”
“You can.”
“No. I can’t . For so many reasons. One being that I made your brother a promise, before I even met you. I swore I’d never touch you, no matter what happened. It was the only way Brendan would bring a Null home to meet a Charm, and I’ve made sure he’s never regretted trusting me.”
My brother’s name slinks through the shadowy office like an intruder. “It’s not his decision, though,” I say. “It’s mine. My Mark. To keep or give away as I choose.”
A reluctant heat creeps into Weston’s gaze, tempering the hard line of his jaw. On the surface, we’re discussing him tending to my injury. But this conversation is actually about something else.
“I know. But...” His voice dips. “Brendan isn’t the only person I promised. I promised myself . I swore I’d never take your magic. Even if, in some moment of misguided charity, you actually offered it to me.”
Something inside my chest splinters and breaks. This isn’t charity. It’s something bigger. Something deep and wide and right .
Except I’m the only one who recognizes that, apparently.
“I’m not worthy of it.” Weston’s voice hardens as he steps back. He pulls at the linen strips that encase his hands. They fall away, exposing swollen, battered knuckles. Bruises and scrapes mar the tanned expanse of his chest. “I mean, look at me. I’m no one. Nothing. Cursed.”
I take him in, certain I’ve never seen anything more magnificent. Because under that topography of muscle and bone beats the heart of a gentleman—an eternally angry one, maybe, but a man of honor. And behind those golden eyes spins a mind that soaks up numbers just as readily as words.
Weston is...everything. The complete package. Every last thing I’ve ever wanted, all in one place.
“I don’t think of you as cursed,” I say.
His brows crook. “You should. You have to. Because it’s the reason I can’t let you waste yourself on me. Don’t you understand? I have nothing to give. Fortuna made sure I can only take. Especially when it comes to you.”
A sting pricks my eyes. I shake my arm, displaying the bloodied splinter. Weston’s eyes follow the motion reluctantly.
“Will you just touch me?” I say, half-choked. “Please?”
Then none of this will matter. The circumstances of our births will cease to mean anything. All he has to do is reach out.
Pain carves lines across his brow. “Why? Why would you even ask me that?”
“Because. I...” The truth burbles in my throat, then snags on my tongue. I love you. I want to be your wife.
“Do you pity me?” he says. “Is that what this is about?”
“No, I... It’s...” Frustration locks my teeth together. I can’t say it. Why can’t I say it? “Just let me give you this. ”
He scans me, then turns away, his jaw tensing, his shoulders drawn up.
“No,” he says, and walks out, leaving me to clean and bandage my injury on my own.
Or one of them, at least.
The scar he’s just carved into my heart won’t heal any time soon.