Page 91 of A Legacy of Wrath and Reckoning

Every time she had felt his pain, back in Ranon’s maze. Had been certain she’d heard him call her name. It had been real. All of it.

Zylah was crying again, but Holt brushed away her tears, held her tightly.I’m sorry you had to go through that, he told her, regret echoing his words in her thoughts and down their bond.To… feel that. To think that I might walk away every time you tried to reach out to me. That I’d give you up to be free of the pain.

I was hurting you. I didn’t… couldn’t reach you, she managed.

But you did. You were.His head tilted, one corner of his mouth twitching.I suppose you thought you were hiding your feelings, but they hit me square in the chest every time we were together.

“I was hurting you even when I was trying not to,” Zylah rasped, her throat painfully tight.

“It was the best kind of pain,” he murmured over her lips, claiming her mouth in a soft, slow kiss that eased a little of her apprehension. “Everything you told me, every look you gave me. Aurelia broke me. But you”—his eyes swept over her face, bright and glassy in the firelight—“You put me back together again, Zylah.”

She ran her hand along the rough stubble of his jaw, fingers brushing over the tip of his pointed ear and curling in his hair. Everything he’d survived. Everything he’d endured. The way he’d fought for her throughout all of it. “Back in the maze…” she began, searching his eyes. “There were moments I thought I felt you… heard you. That day with the water serpent, I think you saved my life. And when I returned to the camp for the first time with Kej and Daizin, I felt you,” she said, bringing her hand to her own heart. “I wanted to go to you immediately. But they convinced me to stay.” She closed her eyes at the admission, regret curling in her gut. “I could barely sleep; I left at first light to go to you.” Even though she’d still been weak. Even though it was foolish. She’d have risked everything for him, done it all over and over again. Her eyes opened to find Holt studying her face. “And then I saw you in that cell,” she whispered, “and you looked at me like I was a stranger. I thought I’d lost you all over again.”

“I was lost. But you found me.” Another kiss, another little bit of Zylah’s fears chipped away. “Aurelia and Ranon are immune to the vanquicite, and though she’s been letting Ranon syphon off some of her power, she was using spells he’d taught her. Sometimes he was with her when she practised, sometimes he wasn’t. Then you arrived.” An echo of his memory surged down their bond, his confusion mixed with his hope and pain, the familiarity he hadn’t understood, the longing. “And suddenly you were in my head, just as Aurelia had been. And Thallan…”

“That’s why you asked if I was like him,” Zylah murmured.

“And because there were moments when I thought…” Pain, but a different kind this time, slid down the bond. And it made her heart break for him all over again.

“I…” she rasped, biting her lip to stop more tears from spilling over. She wanted to tell him how terrified she’d been of hurting him, words lodging in her throat. “You thoughtI’drejected the bond,” Zylah said, watching the way he squared his jaw, the hurt in his eyes. “Because she took me from you.”

He brushed hair from her eyes, tucked it behind her ear. “I felt your fear,” he murmured, and she realised she’d let her thoughts slip through to him. “Every time we were together, your fear was just as acute as your affection.” His hand slid to the space at the bottom of her neck, working her tired muscles. “I’m sorry. For all of it.”

You have nothing to apologise for,she told him, echoing his words from earlier.

“Raif…” Holt tensed, fingers stilling for a moment.In the maze… you told me he didn’t hurt you.

Zylah frowned, the fire popping and spitting behind her. She’d told Holt how Raif had forced his blood on her, healed her with it. “He didn’t hurt me. He was trying to help when Rhaznia trapped me.” She glanced over Holt’s shoulder, noting for the first time the large bed in the room beyond, the open doorway to the balcony, the ocean beyond it. “But he chose to keep me down there in the dark. So I cut him with my dagger and I ran.” And she didn’t regret leaving him behind.

Holt was quiet, and she turned her attention back to his face to see his eyes fixed on the crackling flames. Relief rolled from him, his fingers stroking her skin as much for his benefit, Zylah suspected, as for hers. “I should have killed him,” he murmured, the words wrapped up in sadness just as much as regret. Raif had been like a brother to him for so long; Zylah knew nothing about any of this was easy for him to digest.

“How can one family harbour so much darkness inside them?” she asked.

“Because it’s addictive,” he told her quietly, something guarded in his tone.

“But it wasn’t for you.” Though even as she said it, she knew it was a lie.

Shame rippled down their bond. “I fought it,” he said, his voice strained as he watched the fire. “But every time Ranon commanded me, part of me wanted to bottle the pieces of it that felt good.”

She felt more of his relief at the admission, soothing him with soft kisses along the sharp line of his jaw, her fingers curling in his hair and massaging his scalp, remembering how he’d felt after he’d killed Marcus outside the mine. How his elation had spiralled and woven with everything else, how the same had just happened to her out in the court. “You fought it,” she told him.

“I don’t know how much longer I’d have been able to,” he admitted, his eyes sliding back to her face, awe lighting up his features and pulling away some of the darkness that had fallen over him. “But you pulled apart Ranon’s command when you shattered Aurelia’s magic.”

“You’re sure?” Zylah asked, not daring to hope. Not yet.

“See for yourself.” His hands worked over the knots in her shoulders, down her back, her body. She sank into his familiar touch, her fear overtaken by her longing.

“I can’t.” Zylah could barely concentrate, her blood heating at his soft caress. “My threads… they’re… occupied.” She waved a hand between them with a shy smile. The threads pulsed and weaved around them, spiralling, twining, protecting, nourishing, and she wondered if he could see them just as she could.

Affirmation flared down their bond. “And your sight?”

Zylah shook her head. “Just my eyes. A very narrow field of view.” She held her hands up to her temples to demonstrate, and Holt’s expression hardened again.

He brought his hands over hers, the unmistakable sound of his heartbeat picking up between them as his own worries took over. “You almost burnt yourself to nothing to bring me back,” he said, gently lowering her hands over his chest so he could continue his task.

“I would have,” she admitted. “For you, I would have.” She traced the scar Marcus had given him, the starburst scar over his heart, until his heartbeat steadied and his panic subsided.

Acknowledgement and acceptance rippled over her skin, twined with his reverence, his tenderness, his longing, just as carnal and wild as her own. Zylah had long since warmed up, but Holt hadn’t relented, hands sweeping up and down her skin, caressing her, soothing her, loving her.

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