Page 55 of Mated to the Mad Marquess

He picked up speed, wanting to expend the pent-up anxiety he felt tightening his stomach. What had been overwhelming when he started now felt like a revelation. There was cleansing clarity in working his body raw.

They sprinted around the courtyard, but it didn’t feel like enough. It wasn’t exhausting him as quickly as he wanted. He just couldn’t outrun his feelings or his worries, couldn’t run fast enough to make time stop, to make that horrible pending goodbye stay far away.

Hrafn landed lightly on his back, gripping his shoulders and hooking her legs around his waist. The added resistance helped, but her light body wasn’t enough.

Hrafn spread her wings wide, catching the wind and adding weight to his steps, and that was better.

“When I need to work through something,” Hrafn said in his ear, “it helps me to shout about it. Curses serve best.”

Malcolm swore loudly, pumping his arms and legs, boots sinking into wet ground.

“Sidhek,” she said. “Curses are better in Olden. It means ‘to hell.’ You try it.”

“Sidhek,” he shouted, and she was right. It was better.

“Louder,” she taunted. “Or is this how you go into battle? Quiet as a mouse?”

This was exactly what he needed. To be pushed to his limits and to release his feelings into the void. He roared at the sky, and Hrafn shouted with him. He felt their shared war cry pumping through his pulse, igniting his veins.

Tired to his core, he reached that part of the courtyard where they’d started, where the broken barrel continued to dribble wine. Rain made his clothes heavy. He jogged to a halt and then dropped into the grass. Hrafn rolled off his back and landed beside him, grinning ear to ear, a smile so rare and precious he forced his mind to capture the moment. He’d hold on to it forever.

Parts of the wet lawn were still stained in red. He turned onto his stomach and pretended to suck his favorite drink out of the grass. Hrafn burst out laughing. She grabbed her belly, her eyes crinkling and her cheeks full of joy.

The sound of it was magic. He wanted to inhale the beautiful song of her mirth, wanted it under his skin, contained within forever. Malcolm sidled in beside her and cupped her cheek. A drop of rain caught in her thick lashes. She blinked it away. As she licked her lips, her throat bobbed. She caught the wrist that held her face, and squeezed.

He felt the hesitation in her hold, the worry. They were being careful, that touch said.

Malcolm kissed her anyway. Because he had to. He had to just one last time. Her lips molded to his, and he tasted the rain on her.

No, don’t do it,Solis said.Not now.

Now was the only time. He had to do it while he was strong. While he had the clarity of mind given to him after he’d worked his muscles raw.

“I love you,” he told her, his lips inches from hers, his breath misting in the cold brought on by the storm. “I love you, and you have to go. Right now. Leave.”

Hrafn turned on her side to face him fully, her breath heating the space between them. “Now?”

“Now,” Malcolm said.

Solis melted into a puddle at his back and sobbed.

“The monster—”

Malcolm shook his head. “I don’t need you for the monster,” he confessed. “I was rusty at first. I needed your help then, but I haven’t needed you for some time now.” He knew she would doubt and stress, so he pressed on to free her of that burden. “After my parents died, I returned here. My father kept phantoms as servants, but shadows shouldn’t be kept like that, especially not creatures made from the darkness. They need freedom to do what they do, to chase the light. One phantom turned on my father and whispered madness in his ears. When I arrived, I ripped them all to pieces and sent them off. So you see, I can handle one phantom, even if it does have a little piece of god soul.”

She worked her throat. “How many were there?”

“Hundreds.”

Her chin trembled. “But there are beasts in those woods poisoned by the monster. I can keep the beasts away while you—”

“No.” That was what they’d discussed. But that wasn’t necessary either and he knew it. It was time she did too. “I have a plan for all that, but I haven’t enacted it because of you. Because that monster keeps you here with me, and I hate saying goodbye. So I won’t say goodbye. I’ll just say I love you. I’ll just tell you that you will always be welcome at Reedholm should you decide to take a break from your adventures. I’ll tell you I’m so damn jealous that you get to travel, but also glad you’ll finally be free. You deserve that happiness, Hrafn pidd maldrom.”

“Malcolm,” she said, and her voice cracked.

“Go. Go and remember me.”

“Always,” she said, and she touched her brow to his. Rain dripping between them, she hung there, hesitating. “Come with me.” The words were a desperate whisper so full of longing it made his bones ache.

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