Page 133 of Throne of Air and Darkness

“You are no more at fault for your mother’s torture than I am for mine.”

I tried to recoil, to argue back. But she pressed her fingers to my mouth.

Not a shred of fear, even after I’d nearly torn her arm apart with my fangs.

How could she be so brave, when I felt like nothing more than a shaking coward?

“It has taken me… years, to say that, Arran. And some days I still do not believe it. But it is the truth, whether I believe it on any given day or not.” She leaned in and pressed her lips to my forehead. “What happened to your mother is not your fault.”

I pulled her tight against me, burying my mouth in her neck. I needed to be with her, in every way possible.

He throat was so soft, so smooth and tender.

So easily, I could have ripped it out. Yet she offered it to me freely, arching so I could kiss the delicate column.

I couldn’t hold her tight enough, couldn’t kiss her hard and fast enough. I wanted our bodies to merge in time with our souls.

“Arran,” Veyka moaned. “Arran, please.”

It wasn’t an entreaty for more—it was a pause. I recognized the difference instantly.

I drew back, abashed.

“I hurt you.”

“No!” She grabbed my shoulders, holding me fiercely. “I just… for once, we have to say the words.”

The words.

The words.

My heart stopped in my chest.

“Arran, I… after Arthur died, I promised myself…” Her breath fell from her lips in quivering waves. I was too paralyzed to respond.

“It hurt so much,” she said. “I thought I’d never come back. I did not want to come back. You forced me. You dragged me back to reality, to the world of the living. You made me care about something other than vengeance.”

And because I was a self-sabotaging fool, I couldn’t keep my mouth shut.

“Hate is only a step above vengeance. You ought to hate me now. Being with me… it could get you killed. Or worse.”

The trembling stopped. Or maybe it didn’t.

Maybe it was just that Veyka was shaking her head so hard it was indiscernible.

“How could I ever hate you? Or be scared of you?” She grabbed my hand and pressed it to her chest, right in the center. Where the mating bond lay. “Arran, you are a part of me now. Being scared of you would be like being scared of myself.”

But I wasn’t the only one whose demons had been circling since our Joining. “Isn’t that what’s been happening, since your power awoke?”

“Being scared of my power is not the same.”

She tugged my other hand up, the one not pressed to her chest, and pressed those fingertips against her lips. “I was scared my power would take me away from you. That I would never find my way back.”

There was no more space between us.

I couldn’t allow there to be.

I wanted her tucked against me, at my side, for the rest of eternity.

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