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I don’t breathe as Myron prowls closer, circling the furniture in his path in slow, deliberate steps. When he’s five feet away from me, he reaches for the top of his shirt, undoing a button, then the next.

My breath is coming hard and fast, and I can’t look as he tugs the shirt over his head, but I have to. His chest and abdomen are perfect, the V of his muscles disappearing behind the waistband of his pants drawing my eye. Trying not to think what this is, why he’s taking off his shirt, why I can’t seem to get a full breath down, I lean against the door for support. The wound on my shoulder throbs viciously, giving me no other option but to ignore it the best I can.

By the time Myron is standing two feet in front of me, my heart is beating out of my chest, my mouth dry, and I haven’t blinked in forever. Heat rushes through my veins like a gushing river.

I’m looking anywhere but him, though. It hurts too much to remember what it used to feel like to see him like this—and what it has been reduced to.

It’s not the same.I’m not the same. And I fucking hate Erina for it.

Instead of reaching for me, Myron turns around, exposing his right shoulder for me. “He took from both of us, Ayna.”

Whatever I expected, I’m not prepared for the sight of smooth, pale skin stretching over his shoulder blade where the mate mark once lived.

“It’s gone,” I whisper.

Myron nods, black waves shifting so the point of his right ear peeks through them. He doesn’t turn around as he tells me, “I talked to Silas, too. He said I should be prepared to live with a few days of jealousy.”

Begging the floor to open and swallow me, I hum a noncommittal sound. “He told you about the un-mating?”

“He told me that all I can do is continue to love you. That I’m powerless before the threads of fate that were untangled.”

He stands so still I’m not sure he’s breathing, muscles so tight I believe he might start trembling if he doesn’t do something, say something.

“Are you afraid?” Because I am, and I want those emotions back—all of them. But whatever memory I recall, it is whisked away on a wave of pain that makes me bite back a moan.

So slowly I have time to look away if I choose to, he turns around, facing me fully, every mask stripped away. “I was never more terrified than the moment I realized what they were doing to you. And I’m afraid now when I see how differently you look at me. I’m scared I’ll never experience a smile on your lips again or hear a word of affection from your tongue. I’m anxious every time I step into your presence that you’ll reject me. When I sleep, it is with nightmares of you turning your back on me forever. And when I see the others talk with you, there’s a voice in my mind telling me you might be glad to be rid of me.”

I lower my head, but Myron catches me by the chin, gently holding me back until my eyes lock with his.

“They might burn me out of you, Ayna, but they can’t burn you out of me. Ever. You’re the fabric my world is woven from, the ocean my soul floats upon. You’re the starless night and the brightest sun, and the dawn and the twilight and the storm that blends the two. No matter what they do, you’ll always be there, inside my heart.” He places his palm over his chest. “I don’t need a mate mark to tell me I’m yours.”

A tear slips from my eye. Myron catches it with his thumb, sweeping it from my cheek.

“And I’m ready to wait for all eternity for you to remember you’re mine, too.”

He doesn’t look back as he lowers his hand and picks up his shirt, inclining his head at me as he walks out the door.

Ayna

“I’m not goingto ask you what the fuck you did to him,” Clio bites as she brings down her sword on mine.

Raising an eyebrow in question, I parry her strike, once again grateful for the extra speed and strength Vala and Shaelak gifted me when they decided to make me something more than human.

“I askedhim, buthewouldn’t tell me. Tori, perhaps, if he pried. But your mate is a pretty private person, somymate has the decency not to push him.” On light feet, she twirls away, lifting her sword as she leaps back a foot. “Technically, it would beyourresponsibility as hismate”—she makes a dramatic pause, summoning ice to her free hand before she comes at me again—“to make sure he’s all right.”

“Can you please stop saying the word?” It’s hard enough to run into Myron at breakfast, lunch, and dinner, let alone every time I walk out of what should have been our shared bedroom into the living area connecting the suites of what’s left of our little group. Pouly and Andraya are missing, and Clio and Tori have their own rooms in the palace, of course, but the rest of us returned to the same quarters Recienne assigned us in the first place.

“Mate?” She gives me a deadly grin right before hauling her magic at me. “What’s wrong with the wordmate?”

Crystals of snow and ice dance around me in a tornado ready to sweep me up and carry me away. Perhaps I should let it.

It’s been another four days since the attack. Four days since Myron acknowledged he’d never stop waiting for me. He hasn’t forced a conversation, merely greeted me with those eyes that promise the waves of the ocean. My heart opens into a ravine of despair every time our gaze meets, and my stomach empties into a pit.

“Nothing.” I’m not sure Clio hears me over the thunder of her power, but she grimaces and pushes harder.

“Yourmateasked me about your progress. I assume he meant with training, but I’m not entirely sure that’s what he’s really desperate to know.” The expectant half-tilt of her head as she watches me stand idly at the center of her blizzard tells me she’s waiting for me to demonstrate thatprogress.

With a sigh, I pull on the silver power I’ve been cultivating over the past days since Clio showed up on my threshold,ready in battle leathers and the words, “Time for wallowing is over.”