33 #3
“Wait,” I say, chewing my lip, not sure I should bring it up.
But…I take a deep breath and say it anyway, “You once said that my talent to break through walls and tear them down is unheard of. I once tore through Caryan’s wall and then repaired it behind me.
I could try, I guess.” I’m not sure that’s how magic works, so I wait for his reaction.
“Yes. You could. But not in the weak state you’re in,” he says quietly. “Not when you won’t touch your magic.”
I brace myself for another reprimand, but none comes.
Instead, there’s only silence—and in it, the quiet understanding that something has changed.
Before, I was the one waiting for him to open up.
And he did. Now he’s waiting for me to do the same.
I instinctively want to draw back, to hide behind fury and anger, but then I’d ruin the moment.
Ruin whatever tentative thing keeps happening between us. Trust.
I take another deep breath. “I killed those people, Riven. At Connus’s house.
They weren’t bad. Okay, they were bad, sure, but not only.
They meant no harm. And that magic just…
erupted before I could stop it.” Tears well in my eyes, and I start crying, no matter how hard I try to hold them back.
I’m in his arms and safe before I know what happened.
He pulls me close, and I hide my face against his strong shoulder.
“I never meant to. But I can still hear their screams in my dreams. Smell the burns of their flesh. I’m a monster. I never wanted to be, but I am.”
“You’re not a monster. You’re the best, most pure-hearted person I’ve ever had the privilege to know, Melody.” He draws back, his hands resting on my shoulders. But I just shake my head, not able to accept his words. I don’t deserve any excuse for what I did.
“No. Because while a part of me never wanted it, another dark one wanted them to burn. To suffer for what they did to me. For breaking my ribs and holding me captive. A part of me wanted to hurt them, Riven. And now I regret it, but that doesn’t make it any less true.
I am a monster. And I don’t know how to look myself in the eye. ”
I break down, my knees buckling, but he catches me and lifts me up into his arms, carrying me the way he carried me before, through the air.
Gently rocking me, cradling me to his chest, as if I weren’t the most hideous thing walking these grounds but something precious.
Although he just saw the ugliest, darkest part of me.
“Hate me,” I whisper. My fingers dig into the fabric of his shirt as if he’s the only solid thing I can hold on to.
“I’ll never hate you, no matter what you do. And after what you’ve been through, it’s natural that you’re feeling that way.” His voice is rough, and he sits down in the soft grass, his back against a rock, with me still in his arms.
“No, it’s not. It’s not right to hurt people just because I was hurt. They weren’t Lyrian. They didn’t torture me and chain me and lock me up in a bunker.”
His grip on me tightens, as if my words cause him physical pain.
“It’s not right to lash out at them when, in truth, it was Lyrian who did this to me.
I no longer know who I am, Riven. I don’t know what I’ve become.
I’m a terrible, horrible thing, and I don’t deserve to be loved ever again.
” I bury my face in my hands. “I never meant to kill them, but in that moment, I didn’t care.
I was just so desperate and furious. And I wanted them to suffer. ”
He pries my hands away from my face. “We’ve all done terrible things, Melody.”
I shake my head, looking away. “You don’t understand—I wanted to hurt them.
I wanted them to burn. And scream. What does that make me?
” I want to wrench out of his grip, to draw back.
Want him to let me go so I can run and hide.
Drown in my misery and darkness. But he won’t let me. Won’t even let me cover my face.
“I do understand too well. I, too, have done terrible, horrible, unspeakable things, Melody.”
“But you’ve been forced to do them,” I press out between tears and heaving sobs and tremors.
He lifts me up so I’m straddling him, still holding my wrists.
His eyes are as clear and as damning as a winter’s dawn when I meet them.
“No. I wasn’t. My mother was captured from the sky and sold off to Palisandre as a slave.
And no one other than King Lorvil purchased her.
He kept her, mocking Khalix, for the outside world to see. ”
My throat tightens up, and I stare at him.
“I never got her back. But I tracked down the men who captured her. And believe me, I did unspeakable things to them. It was a small village close to the desert lands of Khalix. Poor cattle wranglers living off the milk of their slim cows and goats, not a spark of mentionable magic in their veins to help them survive. I know they were dirt poor, their children scrawny, small things with hollow eyes. All of the village’s men started to hunt down Nefarians for coin.
I found them. I let their women and children leave, and then I laid waste to their town, let them die in my shadowfire for days and days and days.
They healed just enough to not die before my flames flared anew. And I never regretted it.”
Finally, he looks back at me, his throat working, his aura for once not shielded but laid bare. He’s afraid. Afraid I’ll push him away.
But, instead, I hug him tight. Hold him the way he just held me, with his face pressed against my neck. I gasp when he shifts slightly and I feel his lips at my collarbone. Trailing over my neck, wringing a tiny moan from me before I can hold it back.
He holds me tighter in answer, as his tongue slides up my neck, my pulse suddenly racing.
And all the dark things I just told him and cried my eyes out over—they no longer matter.
Because all that suddenly matters is his skin on mine.
The heat in every inch of my body, burning all the darkness away.
When he kisses my skin, it’s as if I’m coming alive.
My mind no longer reels and spins, but calms while my body flares and tingles with heat.
His tongue licks over the delicate skin of my throat again, and I involuntarily arch my back when I feel his fangs.
He growls in a deep way, and I feel his remarkable length hardening between my legs.
I grind slightly against him, and he growls again. “Abyss, Melody.”
One of his hand splays against the back of my head; the other slides down over my chest, his lips still trailing up my neck, making me writhe and squirm in his lap. I push myself against him all over, until he pulls back, eyes wide as they search mine for permission.
I lean forward and bring my lips to his, and a whole firework rushes through my blood. Pure ecstasy is pumping through me, and I wonder how it is that every tiny touch of his fingers can set off sparks, as if I’m glowing from within.
He kisses me back, and I moan as he slides his tongue into my mouth, claiming it roughly, as if he needs to taste me, feel me, be close to me as much as I need him. His hand fists in my hair, grinding my body against his, while his other hand slides under my shirt and finds my hard nipple.
Gods, I want all of him. Need all of him. Right now.
My hands tear at his shirt. Part of me just wants to rip it all off.
To feel every inch of his sculpted, muscular perfection under me.
To give in to that terrifying heat between my legs and become one with him—and the way he kisses me, and is hard like that, he seems to like that idea too.
And that he wants me, too, is the greatest turn-on ever.
But suddenly, he pulls back, a deep frown on his face. He sits up straighter.
“What is it?” I ask, breathless from his kiss.
“Caryan,” he says, his own voice deep and raw. “He’s back.”
He pauses to listen, and I know it’s because Caryan can talk mind to mind to his high lords, and he’s no doubt giving him orders.
“I need to go.” He curses and then gently lifts me up and comes to stand—which is probably easy for a fae with their strength but still impressive—before he gently puts me down on the ground.
He runs a hand through his hair and adjusts his shirt while his eyes still rest on me, glittering like the stars themselves.
They linger on my swollen lips before they find mine again.
“Forgive me,” he murmurs.
I don’t know whether he means for what just happened or because he has to leave. Does he regret it? My heart suddenly squeezes painfully, but I’m not brave enough to ask.
I let him swipe me into his arms, and a second later, we’re airborne.
I know Riven uses his magic to speed us up while, at the same time, he shields us from the elements again. It’s way too soon that we land on the meadow in front of the university.
Ronin comes running up, frowning at us—no doubt at what he’s sensing between the two of us. But his eyes soften when they meet mine. Aris lopes at his heels in the form of a deep-blue wolf with golden ears and claws.
“We’ve managed to repair most damage. How bad is the rift?” Ronin asks.
“Bad, and close,” Riven counters sternly—and so aloof it’s hard to tell he was all over me minutes ago.
I start to hand him his jacket, but he holds up an elegant, ringed hand.
“By all means, keep it,” he says.
I refuse to bite my lip at the sudden heat in his gaze. Oh, if he only knew that I planned on sleeping in his jacket just to keep his scent around me.
“Looks as if things became quite intense,” Aris says gently, probably smelling the last remnants of well…everything. Gods, this is awkward.
“Not going to talk about it, okay?” I mutter mentally to Aris.
“Thank you, Professor ,” I say to Riven.
Riven just lifts his brows at the last part. I offer him a shy smile before I turn and walk away from him, with Aris following me back inside the building.