Page 144

No.She isn’t afraid.

“This will do, malishka. Unless you plan on walking into the ocean and letting it carry you away.”

Malishka.That word does something to her. She cannot identify if its touch is withering or wonderful. “Don’t call me that,” she says, finally stopping where the sea licks the tips of her boots. She doesn’t turn around immediately. Instead, she waits to hear his feet against the rock and sand. She determines how far away he stands, the distance between them, whether it is safe. And then, gathering her wits, she turns.

If not for his height, the cut of his jaw, the width of his shoulders, Ryon could just be a man standing in weak moonlight, his skin and eyes and hair made impossibly more beautiful by its silvery glow.

“Tell me why I shouldn’t,” he demands.

Dawsyn groans, and then begins pacing the waterline. “You must be so fucking pleased with yourself. Knowing you won.”

Ryon only grins. “What did I win? You?”

“I–” Dawsyn stutters. “I… No! I don’t belong to you, hybrid.”

“Never said you did.”

“Malishka,” Dawsyn sneers. “As though I’m a thing, a treasure to possess.”

“Ah. Well, I’m afraid I’ll have to treasure you in secret then, girl.”

But Dawsyn barely hears him. “I didn’t mean to do it,” she says, pacing back the way she came, eyes on the stars.

“Save me?”

“Love you,” Dawsyn spits, kicking a rock into the water. “Before we took back Glacia. Before the Queens captured us. I didn’t mean to love you.”

“No,” Ryon muses. “Nor I. Though I no longer believe it was something that could have been helped.”

“And then I hated you.” Dawsyn whirls, her jaw aching. “I hated you.”

Ryon nods. “But you don’t anymore.”

“I do.”

“You don’t,” Ryon says, coming to block Dawsyn’s path. The water slips over his boots, but he doesn’t seem to notice. He doesn’t touch her, doesn’t impose himself upon her, but still, he commands her attention. “It’s a very convincing lie you’ve told yourself since Alvira slid that sword through me, but it doesn’t sound true anymore. Does it, malishka?”

Dawsyn’s eyes narrow. Her hand comes over her shoulder, toward her ax.

Ryon tracks her movements as she wrenches it free with less finesse than usual. They both watch her hand raise it slowly until the bit is aligned with the space between his eyes.

“Do it,” he says evenly. There is not a trace of fear in his voice. “Prove me wrong. Throw your ax and tell me you hate me.”

The ax trembles in her hand. Inside her, tightly bound tension is unravelling – days and nights spent tied in knots, the ends fraying each time his voice slid through her, each time their stare held too long.

With a sharp gasp she steps away and hurls her ax into the sand bank beside them. Her breaths are short and ragged, her chest splitting wide open and then caving in on itself with each one. She turns to face him once more. Finds him waiting for her. Quietly expecting her.

“Are you done now, malishka?”

It seems she is. She is tired of denying herself. Tired of fearing this tether between them. Her heart, her core, they scream for her to relent.

And Ryon’s expression says the same. “Please,” he begs her, his chest rising and falling heavily. His hands tremble.

Dawsyn shakes her head at him, and then she moves, she walks right into the circle of his arms. She presses her face into the wall of his chest. She breathes.

Ryon’s hands come to the back of her neck. They tilt her face up to his.

His forehead comes to hers, his breath so close and sweet, Dawsyn finds it hard to care who wins and loses. “I can say it for you,” he tells her, uttering nothing more for a moment. “You love me,” he says, the words travelling over her mouth. “And I, you.”