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I had wanted her in a way I’d never experienced before, a human. It had been… wrong. Until I’d heard her name. And then it had been unforgivable.
I hadn’t understood back then why the sight of her toes wedged beneath his calf had made me so… fucking… angry. Certainly not because I was jealous. No, how could I have been? Wanting a human woman for myself? Even worse, a Brisden? Ridiculous. That pain in my chest? Unrelated. Merely a coincidence.
“You do understand that his definition of ‘whatever it takes’ might very well be to strangle her with his shadows until she gives in, right?” Asker gave a slow shake of his head. “She is his anoaley. He would never do such a thing.” “Never do…?” Well, shake my tail feathers and call me a peacock, in what kind of reality had he been living over these last months?
“What? You told me to take care of her, remember?” “Not like that, Sebian.” He sighed, letting his face fall into his palm. “You bedded his fated mate, and he caught you, didn’t he?” “Caught me?” Scoffing, I ran my fingers through the anoa’s feathers, searching for broken shafts that needed preening. “Old man, he was there with us.”
“I betrayed who I thought was a Brisden.” Oh, and that set everything right? Rationally, yes, I understood why he’d done it, but understanding didn’t equate to forgiveness. How could it, if it did nothing to mend the lingering pain? He’d shattered me, leaving me to pick up the fragments of my soul, my heart… …my very identity! “Who you thought I was doesn’t unbreak me.”
“Hear me, Galantia. No matter where you go, no matter what form you take, I will find you. You cannot outrun me. You cannot outfly me. Every path you tread, be it north, east, south, or west, I will chase after because… you… are… mine.”
“Affection?” One word, and the shards of my heart shot up like shields. Now I knew not to trust him. “As if your hateful soul understood any of it, other than how to feign it. To deceive me.” “Deception and truth aren’t always adversaries.” He grabbed me by the throat once more, crowding me with his body, his lips trailing along my jawline. “Deception’s most profound irony is how it can make the realest truths look like the greatest deceits.”
“Yes, I am a liar.” His breath caressed the shell of my ear before his lips ghosted hot toward my mouth. “I told myself I hated you as honor demanded. That I did not indeed betray the memory of my entire family with how I longed for you, wanted you, spent every fucking second… obsessing over you.”
“You feel it, do you not? Even without your gift, you can feel it. We are two parts of one whole.” His whisper caressed the small gap he’d worked between my lips, parting them more with each sensual lap. “From the moment I first saw you, I felt it. You and I belong together. Forever.”
“That kiss was long overdue, and there will be a lot more in the future, if you’ll have me. But just for the record, because I’m not going to risk your doubt again over three fucking words,” he tugged the back of my head, pulling my mouth back to his as he rasped, “I love you.”
“What I do with Sebian is my choice.” “The illusion of choice is a comforting lie that we succumb to while fate guides our every step. Trust me. I tried to avoid fate for years, only for it to end up in my arms.”
“Every shroud of darkness, every wicked desire, every single fucked-up part of me, I poured into you. You have experienced my depravity, my hatred, those suffocating shadows at my core.” His fingers kept on fumbling, more frantically now. “And you liked it. Goddess, help me… please tell me you liked it.”
Our goddess might have been a cunt at times, but stupid, she was not. Malyr and Galantia were perfectly matched, the deathweaver with shadows too strong fated to the void with a hole too deep.
“You actually do love her, don’t you?” Loved her so much, he was willing to give her up to ensure her safety and happiness. “None of it was feigned.” He gave a pat on my shoulder, then turned for the door. “None of it.”
“Tell me, Malyr, why would you suddenly refuse our bond?” “Because I am not good for you!” he shouted. “I am hateful, ill-tempered, cruel… I am all those things you accused me of.” He glanced over his shoulder at me, his eyes no longer dull, the slight sparkle they carried bringing out the gray in his eyes. “I would rather suffer the Endless Ache until my dying breath than risk hurting you even one more time.”
“But can you live like this?” I asked Sebian. “You’d be my dirty secret.” “I don’t give a shit what I am out there as long as I get to love and care for you when we’re among the people we trust,” he said with a stern certainty that caved my chest, but it all faded with his playful wink. “I do insist on it being dirty, though.”
“I might not be able to bond myself to you, but I want you to know that I’m yours until the end… whenever that might be. I will forever treasure you. I will forever provide for you. I will forever fly with you. I will forever care for you.”
“You are too kind for your own good.” “Says the deathweaver who needs me to suck out his darkness.” “You and I are symbiosis, little dove.” He reached his hand beneath my arm, supporting the heavy limb and allowing me some reprieve. “As much as your void brings me light, my shadows bring you darkness. Balance.”
“Whenever you look about the city, remember that it sparkles because of you and only you. Every Raven who calls Valtaris his home is in your debt, but none so more than I. Without you, I could not have given my family a proper burial. You are… a miracle, my little white dove.” Not worthless. A miracle.
“You are bonded to me. You are in a relationship with Sebian. The three of us are where fate wants us to be. As for love…” a faint, short inhale, “Sebian loves you deeply.” A quivering exhale. “As do I.”
“My love is not gentle, or tender, or easy. But it is real, grown from hate and pain deep inside a chest sullied by shadows. It is cutting and biting, leaving behind scars as unfading as my love for you.” His warm lips scathed my jawline. “And once we are gone from this earth, I will continue to love you among the stars. I will be the night, the darkest patch of sky around you, just to ensure that everyone can see how you sparkle. And once your light starts fading, I will take you into my black embrace, and that is where I will love you beyond death.”
“I will be the night, the darkest patch of sky around you,” he mocked, but it wasn’t like I hadn’t heard his unkindness back at the spring. “How many days did it take you to come up with those lines?” “Five,” I said with a slap against the back of his head that had him coughing up a laugh and actually brought a twitch of a smile to my face. “Three for drafting, two for revisions.”
“I don’t want to hurt you.” “Yes, you do.” Maybe he wanted to hurt me because he’d had so much pain inflicted on him when he was young. Maybe I wanted to be hurt because I’d had none. “If there’s love in this pain, then I want it. I just don’t want there to be any pain in this love.”
“You are not the damsel in distress you make yourself out to be,” Malyr’s voice resonated, as if whispered right beside me, his belief in me like a caress to my soul. It always had been.
“Only the deepest love was capable of bringing about the deepest pain.” Love and pain. Truth and lies. Light and dark. Fate and choice. None of them were adversaries; none of them could exist without the other. Together, they were life.
There was nothing wrong with me. There was nothing wrong with her. Or maybe, there was something wrong with both of us, but who cared? Even if we were both broken, then put together, her cracks matched up perfectly with mine.
