Page 114 of Threaded

She knew the shock she felt was as clear as day on her expression, but she didn’t care.

“You’re right,” he said. “I did once say I would only ever be a distraction for you. But then you went and turned yourself intomine. And now, I think we both know that I will never just be a distraction to you again.” He paused, a slow smile spreading across his perfect, full lips. “I also distinctly remember calling your bluff. Well, guess what,nio—I’m calling your bluff again, right now.” As quickly as it had spread, his smile fell away. “A distraction isn’t really what you need; not anymore.”

Mariah could barely feel herself breathing. Somewhere, deep within her, his words were settling in, combining with the other events of that evening, that day, that week, of every single Goddess-damned moment since she’d received that summons from the queen nearly eight weeks ago.

And in that place within her, she felt her innermost barriers, those guarding the most vulnerable and desperate parts of her, begin to shake and crumble and fall.

Andrian brought the hand on her hip up and cupped her face, the rough pads of his thumbs sweeping across her cheekbones in a movement so achingly gentle that Mariah’s heart nearly fell out of her chest. His eyes were like warm hearths of blue flame, filled with concern as he stared her down, the fire of his gaze burning away the fraying remnants of the barricades deep in her soul.

“What do you need?” His voice was impossibly quiet and warm andsafe.

And with that repeated question, the last of the walls within her came crumbling down. A floodgate opened, and every emotion she’d ever shoved down came rushing out at once.

On a whispered sob, she told him the one thing she knew that could maybe make things right, the one thing she also knew she couldn’t have.

“I need my mom.”

CHAPTER49

When he’d asked Mariah what she needed, Andrian had told himself he would rip apart the heavens until he found the gods and goddesses themselves to make her happy.

But when she shuddered apart in his arms and requested her mother, he suddenly realized that some needs were never meant to be met.

As he’d held her to his chest, rocking gently as she’d sobbed into his dark shirt, he thought about how easy it was to forget how young she was. Sure, she’d reached the age their society considered to be an adult, and she held herself with such fierce grace and determination that could command a room the second she entered it. But she was still barely twenty-one, still trying to figure out a life away from the only home and town she’d ever known.

Feeling his feet beneath him begin to grow numb, he stood, her long, tan legs wrapping around his torso as the emotional dam within her continued to quietly sunder. Gripping her even tighter to him, he padded from the great living space and into her bedroom, using his foot to push the door closed behind him with a softclick. He walked to the edge of her massive bed, laying her down gently on the plush white comforter, peeling her off him even as the sudden loss of her warmth struck him like a dagger to the heart.

She only rolled onto her side, clutching a pillow to her chest, and continued to cry.

Utterly unacceptable.

Andrian quickly shucked off his boots and crawled into the bed beside her, pulling that pillow from her grasp and letting her use him instead.

He wasn’t sure when—or what—had changed within him.

Maybe it was when Lord Donnet had insulted her. Maybe it was when she’d been so ready and willing to get on her knees for him and his shadows in the quiet of the library. Maybe it was when she’d sought him out for relief after someone had tried to end her life with a demon born from the darkest legends of their world.

Or maybe, it was the very second she’d stepped out of that carriage, so resplendent and ethereal in a gown of liquid gold, a zap—of magic, of fate, of who thefuckknew—lancing across his skin as she’d met his gaze.

Not that thewhenreally mattered, anyway.

All he knew now was that he would go to the ends of the earth for this wild girl crafted from moonlight and the darkness between the stars, even if it killed him.

That night, he waited until all her tears were shed, her wracking sobs calming into quiet, gentle shudders.

It was then that he finally spoke.

“Tell me about her.”

And so, he let his queen tell him stories about Lisabel Salis.

Mariah spoke of long rides on horseback through the Ivory Forest in the spring, of afternoon picnics in a glade of white birch trees as light filtered through a green canopy still young and new with the transformational magic of the vernal season. She spoke of Lisabel’s remarkable healing skills, her touch with her patients the very best in the village.

“It was always a shock for people to discover that she had no magic,” Mariah said, chuckling softly to herself before falling silent. “But I guess that wasn’t entirely the truth.”

She told Andrian of how her mother had always defended her daughter, even though the people of Andburgh never approved of Mariah’s rejection of the boxes society tried to shove her in. Never, not once, had Lisabel forced Mariah to be anyone other than wholly herself, no matter how wild and unruly and fiery—and, sometimes, dark—that girl had been.

Rage boiled in his chest when Mariah told him the story of Donnet, how he’d stolen from her family that night when she was young under the guise of tax collection. How her mother had been forced to separate from a dagger long owned by her family … and how Mariah had risked every shot at freedom she might’ve had by stealing that dagger back. For her family, for her future … and, above all, for her mother.

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