Page 82 of An Empress of Earth & Darkness

Waylen cut her off as he moved towards the door. “It’s only a matter of time before you leave and don’t come back. You have responsibilities here and you choose to ignore them. We even gave you La Luna to keep you tied to the pack, but you decided to play at being a warrior of Thorin. You gave up running with wolves to stab with steel, and you will probably end up fucking one of them and having one of their bastard children right before they marry their witching wife.” Waylen’s words wrapped around Breighly’s throat and choked her. “In my eyes, Bry, you are a lost cause. Just like mother.”

Murk dove for Waylen, and the two of them somehow ended up out the door before Breighly could even register it. The fire crackled, and there were a few hissing sounds, but nothing compared to the roar in her head. She steadied her legs, trying to stop herself from crumbing to the ground. When her eyes shifted to Roman, he opened his mouth to speak, but she couldn’t hear another word of what anyone had to say.

She turned, running through the hallway to her bedroom and slamming the door shut. Her back fell against the wood of the door and her breathing hitched as she tried her best to hold in the crushing emotion swelling in her chest.

She heard footsteps travel the length of the hall, and they paused outside her room before going to the adjacent room next door, Roman’s room. He knew she needed time alone. Taking shaky breaths, Breighly covered her mouth. She couldn’t let her father or brothers hear her cry. She wouldn’t dare. One single tear broke free and cascaded down her cheek as she swallowed every other feeling she had, forcing them down to the darkest parts of her soul until her lungs felt like they could burst.

She wiped the tear away quickly, destroying all evidence that it had ever been there in the first place. She’d gotten too good at hiding her emotions, crying in secret when her father came home with cuts and wounds. She could count all of the birthdays she’d spent in her room, muffling her cries for her mother who would never celebrate the occasion with them. Eli, watching her from the Otherside, was the only one who knew how many tears she had shed for him. She wiped away any trace of emotion because that was how she got through every day. She couldn’t let anything in because if she did, she would feel everything.

She would feel every love she was never meant to have and every loss that had torn apart her family. So instead of feeling, she took a breath, counted to ten, and packed her satchel for the mission.

“It’s only a matter of time before you leave and don’t come back. Just like her.”

Jumping from her window to avoid walking through the cottage, Breighly headed towards the rising sun. Hooking her satchel to her arm, she shifted and ran in wolf form to the Blacksteel Hunting Tower until her brother’s words melted away.

Emara had hazy memories of falling asleep on the floor of her bathroom, but she could no longer feel the cool tiles underneath her. All she could feel was skin and muscle with the rising and falling of a warm chest. She instantly took in the scent of pine and frozen berries and fluttered her eyes open. Sheets wove around them subtly, exposing a few parts of skin. One of her arms lay over his chest, and he had fallen asleep with his hand tangled in her hair.

She hid a lazy smile at that.

The beating of his heart was soft and steady, and she loved it when she knew he was relaxed with her.

Soft rays of light filtered through the fluffy clouds that drifted outside her massive window, and as they found Torin Blacksteel’s chest, they illuminated old scars. Her hand travelled up his torso, feeling his soft skin contrasting with the ridges of his carved body. Inky black hair lay against the white pillow, and his skin practically glowed against the crisp sheets. He was a masterpiece. Waking up to him was like a dream.

Is this what married life could be like for them, or would they end up in separate quarters like Naya and Viktir?

They hadn’t even talked about this kind of thing.

Suddenly, the room was too hot and the light sheets were suffocating. She flung her legs out of the bed and sat up. She had been getting used to the idea of sharing a bed with Torin, sharing her life with him… What if that was not what the Commander of the Blacksteel Hunting Clan had in mind?

“Emara?” Torin’s hoarse voice struggled to wake from its slumber.

She looked over her shoulder, and the glory of him lying in her bed like a god hit her heart. The sheets that covered him had been pulled down his torso, dipped low enough for her to see that little trail of hair that led south. The sunbeams softened his angled features, but his ocean eyes weren’t soft. Concern and desire swirled in his irises like a constellation of blue stars.

Her breath caught in her throat.

He was the most magnificent thing in the whole kingdom, and in that moment, her world rocked.

“Is something wrong?” he asked as his hand raked through his unruly hair.

When she saw him like this, it was like magic coursed through her veins and spilled into her heart, filling it so full it could burst. There was something so raw and beautiful about him when his eyes were just awake and his hair wasn’t swept tidy. When his muscles were relaxed and the day’s troubles were not on his mind yet.

He was breathtaking.

Her teeth caught her cheek so that the truth would stay locked behind her lips. She shook her head, spilling hair all around her like a black satin curtain—probably just as messy as his.

“You do know,” he said, lips twitching upward, “you more often than not chew your cheek when you are lying or hiding something.”

She stopped her bad habit instantly. How could he read her so well?

He placed his hands behind his head, displaying his bulging biceps; he lay there like the subject of an oil painting, unaware of how the light was capturing every muscle and every shine in the strands of his hair. “Want to tell me what’s going on in that pretty little head of yours? Or maybe we can start by you telling me why I found you sleeping on the bathroom floor last night?”

A heat rushed up her neck to her cheeks. “I just have a lot going through my head.”

He moved, and one of his hands came over to the small of her back as a gesture of comfort. “We are in this together now. Your dark thoughts are my dark thoughts. Let me ease them.”

But she wasn’t sure if she could show him every piece of darkness that she kept deep down. She could feel that it was bubbling up, and the more she suppressed it, the more it felt like it was screaming. She swallowed as a thick tendril of darkness threatened to curl up her spine. “It was honestly just an uneasy thought. Silly, really, especially with everything going on.”

There were a few moments of silence before Torin spoke again. He drew a little circle on her spine, pushing away the darkness building under her skin. “Do you want to postpone our union?”

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