47. Rahzlyn #2
Raithe turned to face me. The concern in his eyes was too much—too confusing—to bear.
I brushed past him. My bottled emotions were ready to give way, and Baron Ionis had been the tipping point.
I was about to implode, but I wasn’t foolish enough to do so in the middle of a ball being held in my honor.
I chucked off the stifling jewelry onto my bed.
The pins in my hair refused to come undone from my locks.
I groaned in frustration and stared at myself in the full-length mirror.
The nearly full moon’s light poured in from the terrace, partially illuminating my figure.
My hair was a mess, my skin damp with cold sweat, and my face—
Someone moved in the shadows behind me.
My body pulsed with awareness as Raithe emerged.
“I don’t want you here,” I lied to his reflection.
His eyes seemed to glow in response. The planes of his face were sharp enough to cut something inside me.
“I can tell the difference between what you want and what you don’t want,” he said, voice low.
Tempered. “Regardless of whatever misguided reasons made that bastard think it was okay to touch you, you didn’t want it. ”
Each step of his had my pulse fluttering.
“But from your shallow breaths, unsteady heartbeat, and parted lips… I think you want me here.”
He was bolder tonight, and that was dangerous if I wanted to keep him at arm’s length the way he’d done to me.
He prowled closer. My skin tingled with anticipation. A storm cloud hovered over my heart, and it would remain until I finally faced him and put an end to this maddening, unresolved tension.
“You don’t know what I want,” I said, but the words were weak.
“I know that you’ve been avoiding me.” There was a pained somberness to his beautiful features. Part of me hated it. A dark part of me relished it, wanting him to hurt the way he’d hurt me. I didn’t like the dark, brewing side of myself that had taken over these past few weeks.
The part that wanted to shut the world out and hurt anyone in my way.
I tilted my chin up. “You noticed.”
“Of course I noticed.”
“How did it feel?”
“Is that what this was?” he whispered, closer yet still half hidden by the shadows. “A punishment?”
“Did it feel like one?”
Raithe took one step. Then another. And then one more, until finally his body filled the rest of the mirror behind me. Heat licked at my back from where his chest hovered. I ached to arch into him.
“Yes.” His admission caressed the shell of my ear. “It’s been torture.”
I shivered. “Good.”
“Good?” Raithe repeated tersely.
“You ignored me for weeks. After we almost—” I wanted to laugh.
He’d done nothing to convey any interest in me.
Not really. I’d confused his kindness—and my loneliness—for attraction.
It wasn’t fair that I could be so easily affected by him, and that he could feel nothing.
“Tell me something real, Raithe. Something honest.” I swallowed past the nervous lump in my throat.
“Do you think about me? Do you… desire me?”
Raithe’s gaze burned into the mirror where my hand rubbed the communica hidden beneath my dress, nestled between my breasts. Still he said nothing.
“Tell me it’s not just in my head.” I wasn’t drunk, having only had two, maybe three glasses of wine, but I was tired of avoiding him.
Avoiding this. Consequences be damned, if he didn’t meet me halfway in this pivotal moment, I feared a silent void would forever remain.
I would find a way to live with that—somehow—if this was only one-sided.
Something in his face shifted. “You want honest?”
“You owe me that.”
His throat worked. I waited with bated breath, fearing he would reject me. Or worse, shut me out again. When my heart began to deflate, determination set in his jaw.
“I’ve never wanted to kill a man like I want to kill Ionis, and anyone else whose ever touched you the way I can’t.
When I thought you’d been harmed in the attack, I’ve never felt so terrified.
And I—” Raithe broke off with a self-deprecating laugh.
“I’ve never thought about anyone else so incessantly the way I do you. ”
And there it was: the validation that something palpable burned between us.
“So no, Rahzlyn,” he rasped. His face was unguarded in a way I’d never seen before. I couldn’t look away even if I wanted to. “It’s not just in your head. It’s in mine too.” He reached for my hand and brought it to his temple. “You’re in here. And stars help me, I don’t want you to leave.”
“Raithe,” I murmured as my heart exploded with relief—and want.
“You want to know what else I think?”
“Please,” I begged, beyond caring about my pride.
“You’re so fucking beautiful that I never truly understood the meaning of the word until you.”
My breath hitched, dazed by his words. Beautiful. I understood what it meant for him to divulge such honesty to anyone, including himself. But I’d been called that word by many before—many of whom had lied to me. I pulled myself from his grasp and turned. “You must think I’m a fool too.”
Shock dissolved his fervency.
“You deceived me, Raithe. Exactly like you’ve been deceiving Maryn.
” I jammed my finger into his armored chest. “Everyone I've trusted in my life has lied to me. Am I so gullible? Is it so wrong to believe the words of the people I care about?” I knew I revealed too much in my anger, but I couldn’t help it.
“I once thought differently. But now—”
“Now you think calling me beautiful makes it alright?” I pushed past him, seeking the wind, the moon, and the stars. “That it atones for your callous words to me?”
Raithe followed me onto the terrace step for step. “It doesn’t.”
“I deserved to know what Basil was from the beginning. I deserved to know what Kole had done to my family. I deserved to question him myself, but you took that opportunity from me.”
“You’re right. You deserved all of that and more.”
I stopped at the pool’s edge. There was nowhere else to run. Nothing else to do but face him. When I did, I was surprised to find his face steeped with remorse.
He ran his hand through his hair, disheveling his kempt, side-swept curls. “I didn’t think about how it would affect you. I didn’t think what I was doing was wrong. It wasn’t until halfway through my interrogation with Kole that I—”
“Is that why you got to know me?” I demanded. “So you could use what I said to get more answers out of Kole?”
Horror widened his eyes. “No, Rahzlyn—”
“I’ve seen how willing you are to deceive for your own interests.”
“I never intended to hurt you.” He grasped my arms at my sides, bending so that our eyes were level.
“I should have realized sooner that my suspicions of you were rooted in my fear of letting you get too close. Because for some stars-damned reason, you have an uncanny ability of doing just that. It wasn’t until that night in my chamber when we almost…
when I knew I’d fucked up. The things I felt for you weren’t appropriate for a guardian, but it was how much I let you in that terrified me,” he panted.
“So I did what I do best. I said what I knew would hurt you and pushed you away. And I’m so fucking sorry for that.
” He swiped my cheek with his thumb. “It killed me hearing you cry, knowing I was the reason. But the truth is… I only know how to exist alone. If I don’t ask for help, then no one can let me down.
Do you understand that? Do you understand that all I’ve known are people who have used and abused me? ”
“How can I when you’ve told me nothing?” I attempted to shrug him off, but his grip on my arm remained firm.
Not painful, but unyielding. Fine. “I know I follow my heart to places I shouldn’t go.
You have done nothing to encourage what I feel.
” I searched his eyes. “I have no right to be hurt by this wall you’ve built around your heart.
But I’ve glimpsed pieces of it—your heart—and it’s worthy of being seen.
Worthy of being shared. Whoever hurt you in your past, don’t let them claim another second of your life. They don’t deserve it.”
My confession stripped me bare. I didn’t regret a single word, but I was terrified—like I was teetering on the edge of a skyland, and he was the netting I hoped would catch me.
He angled his head as though lining our mouths for a branding kiss. My chin lifted to meet him. When I flicked my gaze from his lips back to his eyes, my breath halted.
Awe and wonderment brimmed there. No one had ever looked at me like that—at me, not my body. The realization suddenly became clearer than the night sky above us. He wasn’t catching me.
We were falling together.
“This wall, Rahzlyn? It exists because all my life, I’ve been the only person I could count on.
For years Alekko tried to be my friend, and I’ll never understand why, because I was an ass who never gave a shit about anyone else.
Still, he stuck by my side, even when I ridiculed him for being too emotional.
” His jaw worked. “I was too stupid to realize what a gift that really is.”
Sadness squeezed around my heart.
“It took me twelve fucking years,” he said lowly, “to realize that I’d slowly let Hector into my life, idolizing him as a father figure.
And then he was gone. And I couldn’t face that pain until you challenged me to.
I’ve kept Felaf at arm’s length because to let anyone see me—actually see me—is terrifying.
Because I’m afraid there’s nothing there worth seeing.
And I know by doing so I’ve failed Felaf as a mentor and comrade. I’ve failed Alekko as a… a friend.”
His hands slid down my arms. My fingers instinctively tangled with his.