Page 61 of Scourged
Mariah gasped against his lips as his hands tightened on her hips, so warm and heavy and familiar. With the magic coursing through her veins, scorching her soul, she forgot the agonies she’d endured those past weeks. Forgot what they’d tried to take from her. Fire lit her blood, settling low in her core, cataclysmically unbearable.
Until a single, broken thought wandered in, unwanted and unbidden.
His hands had hurt her, too.
She wrenched herself away from him with a sudden jerk. His lips were swollen, and his eyes were wide, his face filled with a clarity she’d not seen in a long time.
But that did not forgive the reminder that had sprung to her mind. No matter how much her body wanted this, how much her soul reveled in the bond now stretching between them, a brilliant bridge of silver and gold and shadows.
Some wounds simply cut too deep.
The scars on her back, while healed, itched under the weight of his stare. The feeling of his hands on her hips had her recoiling, a reminder of possessive touches that had sought to demean her. To make her feel less than human.
She pushed off his lap, staggering to her feet, movements jerky and stilted. Her chest heaved as her feet burned against the ice covering the ground, as the sickly sweet smell of late winterjasmine and early spring crocus burned her nose. Andrian’s eyes widened in a strange mix of shock and surprise, blinking rapidly as if to expel a haze, before finally glancing around at his surroundings.
The baffled confusion that filled his too-handsome face dragged her battered soul through shards of glass.
She rememberedeverythingthat had been done to her. But he … he remembered nothing.
Even the things that his hands had done, the new scars he’d inflicted. She knew, she felt, she remembered. But Andrian was blind, helpless in the dark.
Mariah didn’t know which was worse. Which caused her more pain.
He was free, but she was still trapped. Perhaps would be forever. A new, atrocious curse.
Andrian slowly rose from the stone bench, expression still open and cautious and filled with pure, unadulterated hope. Unfiltered hope. Hope that made Mariah want to crumple to the ground.
“Mariah—”
“If you take a single step closer to her, Armature, then these gardens will become your grave.”
Chapter 24
“If you take a single step closer to her, Armature, then these gardens will become your grave.”
The cool tip of metal grazed Andrian’s throat. He recognized the voice. It was one he’d grown up with, one who’d been there to offer him steadfast companionship after all the worst moments of his life. A voice he knew better than even his brother by blood.
“Sebastian, it’s me.” He swallowed. “Please.”
A wave struck him, a washing glow of panic and confusion and fear and joy. He nearly stumbled, gasping, before he locked on a pair of glowing forest green eyes.
That wave … it wasn’t coming from him. It belonged toher.
Gods, he couldfeelher. He could feel everything. He didn’t know if she was aware of how vibrant this connection between them was, or if she was accustomed to it. If this was how every bond felt.
That thought made him grind his teeth, a foreign feeling of jealousy washing through him with a ferocity that terrified him. He momentarily forgot the dagger at his throat, clawing for some semblance of his self-control.
“Mariah,” he whispered, lurching for her.
Her flinch as he moved for her tore him apart with more confusion than any piece of steel ever could.
Was she … afraid of him?
That dagger bit into his skin. “If you think I won’t do it, then you are poorly mistaken.”
Andrian almost growled. Almost swung, lashing out with shadows and limbs.
Until a choking sob shattered his world. More hope and grief crashed into him, drowning him out.