Page 182 of Scourged
He was afraid that if they failed, she might actually burn the kingdom down as her vengeance.
“The moons are setting, and the sun will rise.”
He still hadn’t told her about that strange encounter he’d had in the city. And now, with everything happening, he was glad he hadn’t and wasn’t sure he ever would.
As Sebastian stared at that swirl in the wood, he wondered how far he could follow his queen.
Chapter 64
Mariah hardly felt the scalding water beating a drum against her skin.
She didn’t know how long she’d stood in the shower. She’d walked straight from Ryland’s interrogation to her rooms, Andrian a silent ghost on her heels. The moment she strode through the doors, she’d begun peeling layers of clothing from her skin, desperate to relieve the itching and burning of her rage.
It was mostly a dull flame now, a steady roar at the base of her skull. Ryland’s confessions had reignited it, the beast in her chest clawing at her skin and scraping against her mind.
Mariah didn’t know what was happening to her. It felt like those days before she’d been Chosen, when her magic was stirring. Some other awareness had stirred awake with it, but for so long she’d thought it all the same.
She still thought it was connected to her magic, somehow. Some unintended consequence of carrying the grace of two goddesses in her veins. But it pressed against her control every day, feeding off her fear and her anger, growing more potent with each second she spent dwelling on the terror of her situation.
Of her family’s situation.
Mariah inhaled a quick gulp of air, water streaming down her face. She leaned her forehead against the steam-warmed marble wall and closed her eyes, forcing herself to take deep, measured breaths.
She couldn’t control it, this rage. The more she focused on it, the more it grew, clamoring for more of her attention. She needed to be rescued from it, to be distracted from it. A part of her worried that if she couldn’t claw back to sanity, she would lose herself to this. And if she did … there would be no hope of ever getting her family back.
A blast of chill air hit her back, the steam rushing out as the glass shower door opened and then closed.
She felt him there, behind her, before the water changed. Before a hand brushed down her side, her skin tingling in its wake.
“Talk to me,nio.” Andrian’s words were just loud enough to be heard over the roar of the showerhead, his mouth close to her ear.
She slowly lifted her head from the wall, turning around and leaning her back against the marble. Andrian had one arm braced above her, partially caging her in, but the water still rained in on them from above. It dripped through his hair, droplets catching on his lashes, the crushing blue of his eyes vibrant in the softallumelight.
He was so beautiful; it made her chest hurt. Even that beast calmed itself and curled up as she admired him, sinking into the feeling of his finger as it traced idle circles on her hip. She scanned his face, the strong shape of his jaw, the barely there stubble shading it. Down the column of his neck, across his broad shoulders, her gaze resting on the Mark on his chest.
The roaring dragon, with the jagged scar running down its center. It was so much more brutal than the bonded Marks of her other Armature, but for him … it fit.
Together, they were not clean or simple or ordinary.
They were jagged and messy, but somehow, each other’s broken pieces fit together perfectly.
Apart, they were shattered.
Together, they were forged.
Mariah skimmed her fingers across his scar. Andrian tensed, the press of his hands on her hip gripping her just a little bit tighter.
“A long time ago,” Mariah started, still tracing circles around his Mark, “I asked for a distraction, and you promised me that was all you would ever be.” She stopped, lifting her gaze to his. His eyes glowed beneath a furrowed brow. “Do you remember that?”
He nodded, a brief movement that sent more water dripping across his face. “That failed promise is one I’ll never forget.”
She smiled at that—a sad, slow smile. “Do you know why I asked it? I had just been attacked by an Uroboros. A demon that shouldn’t even exist, sent by a lord I was expected to rule beside. And yet … all I wanted was a distraction. Fromyou. Do you know why?”
He blinked. “I might guess, but I’d prefer it if you tell me.”
She sighed. “I’ve always sought things that could help me … forget. Things that got me out of my head, just long enough to ignore the fact that this world would always force me into some role I had no desire to play. At first, it was horses. Then, it was training. And then, when I reached early adulthood … it was sex.” She didn’t shy away from his stare. She had nothing to hide—not from him.
Mariah suspected he already knew all this, anyways.