She turned from the window to look at him. Leaning back on the sill, hands clasped behind her back.
“I do like it,” she admitted softly. “That’s why it hurts.”
He stood there silently. Just watching her. That new, dark beauty, edged by the warm glow of the fire. He was still pale, his skin smooth and hard, but with truedark only weeks away, he no longer looked like a statue carved of alabaster. She fancied she could see a pulse at his neck now, beneath the curve of his jaw, the strong lines of his throat, the hint of muscle through the open neck of his shirt …
Mia looked away. Sucked her lip.
“I’ve been thinking.”
“O, DEAR.”
She smiled with him, dragged a lock of hair behind her ear. “When we reach the Mountain, getting Mercurio back is obviously our first priority. But the Blades who hit us at the tower aren’t the last assassins the Red Church has to throw. They’re just going to keep coming until we cut the head off the snake.”
Tric turned from the fire to face her. “DRUSILLA.”
“Aye,” Mia nodded. “And the Ministry, too.”
“STRIKE THE SHEPHERD AND THE SHEEP WILL SCATTER.”
“No,” she said. “Strike the shepherd and the sheep will follow.”
Tric’s eyes narrowed. “MEANING?”
“Meaning I’ve been thinking on it since I dragged this hideous fucking coat onto my shoulders. Folk follow leaders with the resolve to lead. It goes back to something my father said. ‘To claim true power, all you need is the will to do what others won’t.’” Mia dragged deep on her cigarillo, breathed gray into the air like flame. “So I’m not just going to kill the Lady of Blades. I’m going to become the Lady of Blades.”
“YOU HAVE A GREATER DESTINY THAN THAT, MIA.”
“So you keep saying. But I’ll hardly fulfill it if some prick slits my throat while I’m sleeping. If I kill Drusilla and the Ministry, there’s no Blade alive who’d challenge me for the role. And the Church won’t be hunting me if I get to dictate who they hunt. It’s like Ashlinn said. ‘Nothing’s kept by those who won’t fight for it.’ So I’m going to fight.”
“ASHLINN.”
The name was like a knife slicing the air. Left quivering point-first in the floorboards between them.
“You’re going to have to get used to her being around, Tric.”
“I CAN’T HELP BUT NOTICE YOU SENT HER AWAY. AND I’M STILL HERE.”
“Don’t read further into that than’s warranted. She and I are together now.”
He held out his arms to the room about them. “BUT YOU’RE NOT, ARE YOU?”
“You know what I mean.”
“NO,” he said. “I DON’T. YOU NEVER ANSWERED ME WHEN I ASKED IF YOU LOVE HER.”
“Because it’s not your business.”
She saw a flash of anger then, burning and terrible in those bottomless eyes of his. The muscles in his jaw tensed, those black hands that had once roamed her body curled tight into fists. She could sense the awful speed and strength the Mother had gifted him, etched in every hard line and beautiful curve of his body. But slowly, as he looked at her, the rage melted, the tension in his frame faded. He swallowed hard and turned to the fire. Both hands on the mantle, saltlocks draped about his face as he hung his head and stared at the flames.
“… HOW CAN YOU SAY THAT?”
She watched him watching the fire, listening to the crackling wood, the sea singing outside, the thump of her own heart, painful and aching against her ribs.
“DO YOU EVER THINK ABOUT US, MIA?” he asked.
“Of course I do.”
“I MEAN US. THOSE TIMES … US TOGETHER.”
Tension crackling between them, curling the edge of her lips. She could feel it thrumming in her fingertips. Pulsing beneath her skin. Desire. Her for him. Him for her. Nothing and no one between.
“Yes,” she admitted, her pulse running quicker.
“EVER WONDER WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN?”
“Weren’t you the one who told me I should let the past die?”
“WEREN’T YOU THE ONE WHO SAID SOMETIMES IT DOESN’T?”
“Aye,” she agreed. “Aye, sometimes you have to kill it.”
“LIKE SHE KILLED ME.”
Mia drew a deep breath. Pushed herself off the windowsill and walked slowly across the wolf furs scattered about the floor. She joined him near the hearth, hands clasped behind her back, watching the flames with wary eyes as they stretched toward her like grasping claws.
“SHE KILLED ME, MIA,” Tric said. “SHE TOOK AWAY EVERYTHING I WAS.”
“I know. And I’m sorry.”
“HOW COULD YOU BE WITH HER AFTER THAT?”
Mia looked into the flames. Her hackles were rising, her temper flaring—she didn’t enjoy being questioned about who she bedded or why. Those were her choices. More than any other she’d made, they belonged to her. But Tric had once shared her bed, too—the first to ever do so who’d actually meant something, truth told. And given the circumstances, she could see how asking for an explanation wasn’t the most outrageous request he could’ve made. At least he’d waited ’til they were alone.
“Ash reminds me of me,” Mia declared. “She wants something, she takes it. She doesn’t answer to anyone. She’s fierce and she’s unafraid and she’s fucking beautiful. And in a world like this, that’s all too rare.” Mia ran a hand through her hair and sighed. “I realize the egotism at play in that. Wanting to bed yourself. But it’s more than that, too. Ash stands up to me. She pushes me. She takes the world by the throat and she squeezes. But when we’re alone, she reminds me of everything that’s good, too. She’s gentle and she’s sweet and everything I’m not.”
Mia put her cigarillo to her lips and sighed.
“When we first … with each other, I mean … Ash and I were both running along razor blades. Any turn could’ve been our last. And I thought about my life and where it’d been steered and understood I’d never really had a say in any of it. And I wanted something that could just be mine. My choice.” Mia shrugged. “So I chose her.”
“BUT YOU DON’T REGRET IT? EVEN NOW?”
“No.” Mia shook her head. “I think I need someone like her. Being with her … it shows me there’s more to all this than just the blood. Because I want there to be. But it’s so hard to remember that sometimes.” Mia drew a deep breath off her smoke, savored the warm burn in her chest. “It’s as if there’s two halves of me, aye? Two pieces of the whole. One is just … darkness. Rage. She hates the world and everything in it. All she wants is to tear it down and laugh as it burns. And then there’s the me who thinks there might actually be something worth fighting for in all this. And maybe something to live for after.”
Mia looked into the flames—the fire ahead and behind.
“Two halves at war within me. And the one that will win is the one that I feed.”
Mia stared at the fire a long time. Watching the tongues of flame consume everything before them, smoke and ashes the remainder. Wondering if that’s what she was. If that was all that would be left when this was done.
She glanced toward Tric, found him gazing back at her.
“Why are you just looking at me like that?” she demanded. “Say something.”
“WHAT SHOULD I SAY? THAT I UNDERSTAND? THAT I CONCEDE?”
The boy shook his head, looking deep into her eyes.
“YOU SAY NOTHING’S KEPT BY THOSE WHO WON’T FIGHT FOR IT? I PLUNGED MY HANDS INTO THE DARK BETWEEN THE STARS FOR YOU, MIA. I TURNED MY BACK ON LIGHT AND WARMTH AND CLAWED MY WAY THROUGH THE ABYSS FOR YOU. I DIDN’T DO THAT SO I COULD STEP ASIDE GRACIOUSLY AND WATCH THE GIRL WHO KILLED ME LAY CLAIM TO THE GIRL I LOVE.”
“Well, you don’t have much choice, do you?”
“DO I NOT?”
He turned toward her, and she could feel the want in him. Carved in the line of his lips. Smoldering in his stare. Slow as ages, long as years, he lifted his hand to her face. Mia tensed but didn’t flinch, her jaw tighte
ning as his thumb trailed down the scar on her cheek. The heat from the hearth had touched him, enriching the new flush of life in his skin, and his caress was warm as the firelight. She felt butterflies rolling in her belly, her lips parting, her breath coming a little faster.
“Don’t…,” she warned.
“WHY NOT?” he whispered.
“Because I said so.”
“AND YET YOU DON’T PULL AWAY?”
“Never flinch, Tric.”
“TELL ME YOU DIDN’T LOVE ME, MIA.”
His hand drifted down her cheek, closer to her lips, and though she knew she should stop him, every inch of skin he touched seemed to be afire.
“TELL ME YOU DON’T LOVE ME, STILL.”
He stepped closer, brought his other hand up to her face. This near to him, she could feel the fire inside him, that dark unflame burning at his heart. But strange as it seemed, wrong as it might be, she found herself drawn to it. Like a magnet. Like she was falling into it. The power of the goddess—the Dark Mother who’d given birth to the splinter of the god inside her, wide as the skies and deep as the oceans and black, black as the heart now thundering inside her chest. She’d thought his eyes were just empty darkness, but this close, this dangerously, wonderfully close, she could see they were filled with tiny sparks of light, like stars strewn across the curtains of night.
Beautiful.
“I DENIED DEATH FOR YOU,” he breathed, leaning closer still. “AND I’D DIE FOR YOU AGAIN. KILL FOR YOU. I’D TEAR THE STARS DOWN FROM THE HEAVENS TO FASHION YOU A CROWN. YOU ARE MY HEART. MY QUEEN. I’D DO ANYTHING AND EVERYTHING YOU ASK ME, MIA.”
He took hold of the collar of her greatcoat, began pushing it, inch by inch, back off her bare shoulders.
“ASK ME TO STOP,” he said.
She shouldn’t, Goddess, she couldn’t let this happen. Thoughts of Ashlinn burned in the back of her mind, but in her chest, between her thighs, a darker fire was smoldering now. She didn’t know whether it was the night’s kinship in them, the unearthly beauty he now possessed, the simple ache for the lover she’d thought gone forever, now standing right in front of her as if carved by the hands of the Night herself. But looking into his eyes, down to the smooth curve of his parted lips, she realized she wanted him.
O, Goddess help her, but she did …
The coat slipped to the floor.
“ASK ME TO STOP.”
But she didn’t. She didn’t breathe a word. And then he was kissing her, wrapping her in his embrace and crushing her to him, and it was all Mia could do to remember to breathe at all. She found her hands moving of their own accord, running over the smooth hardness of his arms, across his shoulders as he scooped her up off the ground. She wrapped her legs around his waist, ankles locked at the small of his back, their kiss growing deep enough to drown in. Shivers ran all the way down her spine as she felt his tongue brush against hers, the warmth of the fire and the dark flame inside him sending goosebumps thrilling over her whole body. His lips were as soft as they’d ever been, his body just as warm. His mouth tasted of smoke, his scent, the perfume of burning autumn leaves. She sighed as his lips broke away from hers, left a burning trail of kisses across her cheek, down her throat.
I can’t do this …
His lips roamed lower, across her collarbone, like fire and ice all at once. Her skin felt alight with it, that dark flame in her chest and between her legs only growing hotter as his mouth reached her breasts, as he took one stone-hard nipple into his mouth, teasing with his tongue. Mia sighed as her head drifted back, entwining her fingers in the soft shadows of his hair and dragging him in, urging him on as she felt the soft press of his teeth, yes, yes, head spinning, chest heaving, belly filled with butterflies all at the wing.
“O, Goddess…”
I can’t let this happen …
He sank down onto the furs, carrying her effortlessly. Her legs were still wrapped around him, the firelight crackling brighter beside them. She found herself atop him, half-naked, her tongue in his mouth, his hands on her waist. Goddess, she wanted to suck him. Fuck him. Feeling his pulse beneath her hands, grinding into the impossible hardness she felt at his crotch, her fingertips tracing the furrows and valleys of muscle at his chest, down his stomach. She groaned just like he did, rolling her hips, aching with the feel of him against her and the almost nothing between them. Lust inside her. Desire for the darkness inside him. A truedark hunger, born in the lightless black, so vast and empty she wondered if he could ever truly fill her. But Goddess …
O, sweet, merciful Goddess, she wanted him to fucking try.
She was losing herself in it. The feel of him, the taste, the familiar shapes, carved anew by the Mother of Night. Falling down into the need of him, aching from the touch of him, wanting to forget and remember and for a tiny moment, simply enjoy being lost inside it, with him inside her.
Lost.
“’Tis better to have loved and lost…”
“Whoever said that never loved someone the way I love you.”
She heard the words in her head.
Remembered the look in the girl’s eyes.
Her girl’s.
Two halves warring within me.
His hands on her body, his lips on her skin.
And the one that will win is the one that I feed.
“No,” she whispered.
He sat up, fingertips roaming her back, mouth roaming her breasts, his ink-black hands taking hold of her hips and helping her sway …
“Tric, stop,” she whispered. “We have to stop.”
He looked up into her eyes, his own shining with lust. Pulling apart from him felt like tearing herself in two. The want was so real, it was a physical pain. Burning like fire in her veins. The room growing hot, and hotter still.
“MIA—”
Without warning, Mia saw a flash of searing light in the hearth beside them. Felt a vicious, scorching heat. She gasped as a tongue of flame flashed out from the fireplace, lashed against her leathers, the fur they lay on. She rolled away with a black curse, the fire taking root on the fur and spreading in a blinking.
The blaze was hungry, furious, burning with an intensity fiercer than it had any right to. Streaking along the wolfskin, right toward Mia. Tric scrambled to his feet and flipped the furs over, smothering the blaze, stamping on it like serpents. Mia ran to her desk with a cry, grabbed a carafe of water. Tric stomped and kicked, finally booted the fur back into the hearth, where it curled up and blackened. With another curse, Mia dashed the water across the smoldering floorboards. And though it seethed and spat and struggled, the last of the fire drowned beneath the flood.
Black smoke and sudden silence filled the room. Mia’s heart was thumping in her chest as she checked her bare skin and hair for burns. Fear rushing in to replace the lust she’d burned so brightly with only seconds before …
“ARE YOU ALL RIGHT?” Tric asked, reaching for her, eyes full of concern.
“I’m fine,” she said, backing away. “Just singed.”
“MIA, I…”
She felt suddenly cold. Aware that she was half-naked. A clarity, cool and crystalline, breaking through the rush of desire. Stooping, she grabbed her tumbled greatcoat and threw it around her shoulders. Pulled it tight against the chill. Her pulse was thunder. Her legs were shaking.
“I think you’d best go,” she said.
“MIA, TELL ME YOU DON’T LOVE ME,” he said, stepping toward her.
“Tric, don’t…”
“TELL ME YOU DON’T WANT ME.”
“I can’t!” she snarled, stepping farther back. “Because I do! But there’s a few moments of right in that, followed by a whole lifetime of wrong.” Mia shook her head, amazed to feel tears burning in her eyes. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry things turned out the way they did. I’m sorry we don’t all get what we want. Because I want you, Tric, Goddess help me, I do. But truth is, as much as I want to have you now, I want to keep her more.”
He took another step toward her
, and she, another step away. He reached out to her and she looked into his eyes and saw the agony there. Saw how unfair and fucking cruel this whole tale was. She wanted to scream it. Curse the gods. Curse the life and the fate that had brought her to this moment, this awful choice. Because no matter what she did or how she chose, someone she loved was going to get hurt.
I am fucking poison, do you see that?
I am cancer …
Someone always gets hurt.
“I’m sorry,” she said again. “But we can’t do this. I can’t do this. She means too much to me.”
“… YOU DO LOVE HER, THEN,” he whispered.
“I think…”
Mia met his eyes, tears welling in her own.
“I think I do.”
His hand fell to his side. His gaze to the floor. His shoulders slumped and his legs shook and she could almost see the heart in his chest shattering. Cleaved right in two. And her accursed hand on the blade. He closed his eyes tight, jaw clenched, shaking his head. But a single traitorous tear, black as night, still welled in his lashes. Slipping down his cheek, it trailed along the line of his dimple to his chin. Mia found herself crying, too, stepping forward with a soft murmur of pity. Wanting to make it better, to take his hurt away, to somehow make it all right.
“Don’t cry,” she said, fingertips brushing his cheek. “Please don’t cry.”
He pulled back from her touch like it burned him. Turned and walked away without a word. Not storming or stomping, not slamming the door behind him. It somehow would’ve been better if he were furious with her. But instead, he left calmly, quiet as the dark. The question of where they stood now and what might come between them, unanswered.
Mia was sure she could hear the flames in the hearth laughing at her.
She looked down at the fingers that had brushed his tear away.
Black like his eyes.
Like the night.
Like the heart in her fucking chest.
She slumped down before the hateful fire. Watching the tongues of flame consume everything before them, smoke and ashes the remainder.
Wondering if that’s what she was.
If that was all that would be left when this was done.
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