Page 62 of The Flame and the Forsaken

“My parents. My sister.” Mariel hadn’t spoken the words in years. Everyone close to her already knew the story. “The mothers and fathers of so many of my friends. Villages, once so vibrant and full of life, slowly went barren. And then...” She wrapped herself tighter. “Then came the land theft. And we lost that too. Families were accused of crimes that had never happened, or in our case, the Ashdown land was confiscated after my parents died. The lawmen who came to claim it said children could not own land, not even held in a trust until their maturity, and that was that.”

“My father...” Erran composed himself. “My father did this?”

“It’s happening all over. Your father was just the one whose actions hurt me and my loved ones the most.”

“And what... What did you hope to gain with this marriage? Access to his ear, to sway him?”

“Guardians, no. Powerful men only listen when other powerful men are speaking. What did I hope to gain? Information.” She smiled sadly. “Anything I could use to even slightly balance the wrongs that had been done upon the common people. When he spoke of the auction, I dreamed too big. I should have known it was too much for our little group.”

“What were you going to do?”

“The others wanted to dump all the gold in the sea, so no one could have it. So it could never be taken back.” She shook her head. “I believed it was worth the risk to redistribute it to where it belonged. Remy said the stewards would just steal it again if we did, and maybe he was right. But it shouldn’t be so fecking easy for anyone to do what those men have done.”

“You’re right.” Erran’s voice croaked. “It shouldn’t. It’swrong,and I don’t even know what to say, Mariel. I really don’t. Except that I should have known and not been so... so willfully blind.I couldhave known, but I didn’t care.”

Her heart softened toward him. It had been softening inch by inch, even before he’d leaped off a cliff after her. He wasn’t his father, but he should have known. He should have cared.

Considering that, her urge to comfort him was bewildering. “You know now,” she whispered.

Erran’s hand slid from his knee to hers. His expression contorted, traveling a range of emotions. “I understand now why you’ve always been so angry toward me. You had every right to be.”

Mariel tentatively inched her hand closer. Her pinky tickled his. “I’m not angry with you anymore, Erran. You’re no more responsible for your father’s atrocities than I am for not knowing how to save my parents and sister.”

“You should be.” He angled his face away and wiped it on his sleeve. “If we ever... If the Guardians see fit to bring us home, Iwillfix this. Somehow, I will fix it.” A hard, shuddery breath pulled him erect. “I can’t bring them back, but I can make it right.” He sniffled and lifted the amber bottle. “More whiskey?”

Mariel shook her head, taking him in. The glisten in his thoughtful eyes, as green and deep as the forest surrounding them. The flush coloring his entire face. His mouth, arched with penitence, with the expectation of words he didn’t know how to speak, something she understood, because she didn’t either.

“Rain is starting.” Erran held his palms up. “We should go in.”

She nodded and helped him tidy the area. Her gaze followed him, watching how he bent, how he cradled the whiskey, and how he kicked sand over the fire. They were perfectly routine actions, but she wondered how she’d never noticed the way he bent at the knees... the short, measured kicks that were just enough. The strangest, most obvious thing occurred to her as she realized he was a real, whole person, not the caricature of a steward’s son she’d made him out to be. It had been a choice not to see it. To see him. A choice that suddenly fell short of her expectations of herself.

Erran stood at the base of the steps, waiting for her to go first. “What?” he asked when she didn’t go.

“Nothing, I...” Mariel hobbled up the steps, her heart a racing mess. It wasn’t the spirits; she’d hardly had enough to do much more than relax her. It wasn’t a feeling she’d ever experienced at all, but some part of herself recognized it, and it was that part that turned, flung her arms around his neck, lifted her up onto her toes, and touched her lips to his.

Erran’s surprise echoed against her mouth. Mortification flattened her impulsiveness as she started to apologize, to explain herself, but the words caught when his hands reached down to grip her face and cradled it. His eyes skimmed her, his mouth parting, and then he crushed his warm, soft mouth to hers, dissolving her words. The unexpectedly gentle caress sent her aflame.

He pulled back, reading her again. “It’s not the whiskey, is it?”

Mariel bit her lip and shook her head when she couldn’t find words.

“Thing is, I want you, Mariel. I want you more than...” Erran’s artless candor, his confidence in saying what he meant, had once annoyed her, but now... “But only if it’s what you want.”

Her flesh tingled from her fear of doing the wrong thing—saying the wrong thing. She’d never felt so exposed, but what scared her more than the vulnerability was the comfort in it. The understanding she was safe, if she wanted to be. “It is what I want.”

His thumb caressed her cheek. He hoisted her into his arms, kissing her again and again and again, his lips skating her chin, jaw, and neck before returning to her mouth.

Erran’s boots joined the cacophony of fresh rain and her erratic heart as he slowly carried her to the cot.

She was practically trembling as he tenderly undressed her from the waist down. He was extra careful when the fabric of her undergarments brushed her stitches, and he leaned in to kiss the edges of her angry flesh. Her head fell back from the strange intimacy of the act. To hear the others in Obsidian Sky speak of sex was to envision a sweaty tangle of desperation and regret.

His mouth brushed between her legs, his hot breath waking a part of herself she’d only indulged in her most private moments, when she needed the release that nothing, not even the heists, could provide. When the tip of his tongue parted her, she cried out, bearing down in modesty that was unnecessary. There was no one to see. To judge. The island—this life, this world—was theirs.

“You can let go, Mar,” he whispered, his breath hot on her nethers, and she did, releasing the world to allow it to fall away. Even the rain was part of another life... the boar, the whiskey. As she climbed higher, safer, she thought of nothing except how beautiful it was to be wholly present and open with another.

Mariel’s thighs instinctively clamped when she climaxed, but Erran was unfazed, his arms still wrapped around her legs, his tongue taking her further than she’d ever been on her own. Oh, Guardians how she wanted him. She couldn’t remember ever wanting anything more.

Erran peeled back and waited for her to recover, wearing a boyish smile she wanted to kiss and keep forever.

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