Page 61

Ice filled her at his accusation. Suddenly, they were too close. Too intimate.

Maude lifted herself off his hips, adjusting her dress until it fell to the floor again.

Taking a few steps away from him as he sat up on the edge of her bed, she tried to figure out how they went from being wrapped around each other to this distance.

Their closeness was only ever a result of their lust, not one of mutual respect, apparently.

And yet, they kept getting drawn together like it was out of their control.

"I don't understand what just happened," she whispered. "I am trying to talk to you now, we don't have a lot of time but I thought I was doing what you wanted by trying to discuss everything that was revealed tonight."

Herrick ran his hands over his face before he brought his eyes to hers, the gold sheen duller than ever.

"Yes, but only after you confronted Dahlia about Baldr being the spy for the Kingdom of Shadows. Now that the information is out there, you want to talk? Not before? You didn't think I should know about your suspicions?"

"I was going to tell—"

"And while I appreciate all you said and did to pull me from myself during that dinner, the longer I sit with the fact that you still hid something important from me, the angrier I become," Herrick continued, cutting her off when she tried to defend herself.

"There was no way to know if I was right, and rather than hurt you by bringing it up, I kept it from you. I never planned to hide it from you forever," she argued as she started to pace the plush carpet in her bedroom.

"I don't trust you," he said simply, though his voice was tired. "I don't know how to anymore."

She stopped short. Like a dagger had been thrust into her chest, Maude felt the air leave her lungs. Was she dying again? That had hurt less than this .

"I've told you everything, there is nothing more for me to reveal," she replied, breathless. Her disbelief permeated every word, every movement. "What do I have to do to make you believe me?"

Herrick hesitated as if he was unsure of the answer. When he finally did reply, it crumbled whatever strength Maude had left.

"I don't know. I'm not sure there is anything you can do."

All at once, her body numbed.

"Get out," she breathed.

Shadows slithered toward her from the corners of the room until she was encased in their darkness, blocking whatever his reaction would be.

"Maude—"

"Get. Out ."

Footsteps sounded before her door opened and then shut again.

It didn't break through the remnants of the walls that she was fortifying.

She needed to prepare for their trip; they were leaving so soon, but her body wouldn't obey her commands to move.

She had twenty minutes before she needed to be in front of the palace—twenty minutes to pull herself together.

In her artificial night and the safety of her mind, only the sound of her dry sob and her heart shattering echoed around her.

Liv turned the corner with Bryn, their shared tension from the night filling the hall until they both slowed.

In the late hour, the residential hall was empty. Most of Aeric's guests who stayed in the palace usually spent their time in the city, their worship of the night sky keeping them out of the halls until the early hours of the morning.

In this case, it left her alone with her friend's sister after a night of bad news and worse turns of fate.

"Are you angry with me?" Liv asked Bryn as they slowed to a stop in front of their doors. The question seemed ridiculous after everything that had come to light.

Across the hall from her childhood bedroom, Aeric had picked a place for Maude's sister to stay in as it was close to the Heir of Shadows' room.

During Maude's stasis, Bryn had been at her sister's side every hour of the day.

Now, she seemed to have settled into the bedroom with no awareness of how it tortured Liv to have her so close and so far at the same time.

Bryn said, her gaze as distant as her voice, "In relation to all of the grotesque news about my family's history and my father's heinous acts all these years, I am definitely not okay. But angry with you for following Aeric's orders? No, I'm not."

She trailed off, unaware of how her words held Liv on a hook.

"Then tell me what's bothering you," Liv said gently.

"I don't like what I've had to become," Bryn finally said after Liv thought she might not continue.

"Dahlia spoke about Baldr's duty when he did what he did to Herrick in order to remain a secret.

I realized that it isn't enough; playing the role of a dutiful General to stay in power while also trying to help a rebellion isn't enough to wipe away the things we have to do to stay in that role. "

Liv swallowed thickly as Bryn revealed what was tormenting her.

"It didn't matter that I was trying to help," she went on, unaware of how her words landed on Liv's heart. "I was just as complicit as Baldr has to be now."

Without pausing to think about how this might affect their friendship, Liv reached out to grasp Bryn's hand. As soon as their skin came in contact, lightning buzzed up her arm. Bryn stiffened for a second before turning to Liv as if she had felt the same thing.

"We become who we need to be to survive," Liv said quietly, even though her voice seemed to boom in the stillness of the empty hall.

Bryn started to pull away, but Liv only gripped her hand more tightly.

"That doesn't excuse what needed to be done, but the fact that you are struggling with it instead of shrugging off the things you had to do means you did not break under that cruelty. "

Liv watched as Bryn deflated a bit, her slim shoulders holding such strength, bowing under the weight of her guilt.

Perhaps it was because she was feeling bold tonight when the news just kept getting worse, but she stepped closer to the Helvig heir, who hated her past as much as her heritage, until Liv could feel the fire that burned in Bryn's veins radiating off her skin.

With one tentative hand, Liv turned Bryn to face her until she could brush her thick, copper curls behind her shoulder.

Her touch left a trail of goosebumps on Bryn's skin.

Later, when Liv thought back on this quiet moment, she wouldn't be sure if the goosebumps that appeared from her touch were real or imagined.

Tucking an unruly ring of hair behind Bryn's round ear, Liv gently said, "You are a good person, Brynna Helvig, no matter who sired you. And you did all you could with what you had then. But now?"

Liv chuckled softly as Bryn brought her hazel eyes to meet hers, the vulnerable hope in them clear despite the fortress she usually had up.

"The people of Logi are incredibly fortunate to have an Heir who continues to fight for them, even when the fights to come seem hopeless. An Heir who is so consumed with the regret of not doing enough that it spurs her on to do more. An Heir who has not and will not forget her people."

Watery hazel eyes penetrated Liv's shell as her words hung in the air between them, the redness ringing Bryn's almond-shaped eyes standing out against her pale skin.

Liv watched as a single tear escaped from the corner of Bryn's eye.

Unable to stand the vulnerability, Liv swiped her thumb over the small crack of Bryn's armor.

The air between them charged as Bryn took a step closer.

And then another, until their bodies nearly touched.

One shift, one breath, and Liv would feel the soft chiffon of the silver gown Bryn wore against her tunic.

A gown that had forced all coherent thought from her mind when she saw the Heir of Flame walk out of her bedroom, her tall and slender body draped in a softness that showed an entirely different side of her.

On instinct, Liv froze while Bryn seemed to sway toward her.

They stood there for a moment, two entities orbiting each other, until the tension seemed to crack.

At once, each of them seemed to realize where they stood and who could walk in on their shared quiet at any moment. So they started to pull back .

But when she finally did retract her touch, Liv couldn't stop herself from running the edge of her thumb down Bryn's neck softly as she pulled away.

She could swear that Bryn's breathing hitched just as her eyes closed, her head tilting slightly to bare her exposed neck to her.

As her hand fell away, Bryn turned toward her with that quiet speed of hers, catching it and twining long, slender fingers with Liv's.

In the small space, their bodies seemed to gravitate toward each other with each rapid beat of Liv's heart until the sound of it must have filled the room with her anticipation.

Bryn took one more cautious step into her space, their hands still entwined, and leaned her forehead down slowly as if she was giving Liv time to stop her. She didn't.

She let Bryn's forehead rest on hers, the intensity of her flame-heated skin radiating the dry heat of a crackling fire as it glowed beneath her flesh.

Liv's breath caught in her chest at the contact, at the way her nerves seemed to come alive under this woman's touch.

Their breath mingled in the space between them as their scents wrapped around them both.

Bryn's desert lavender was minty and sweet on Liv's tongue, the promising divinity of how Bryn would taste making the air in her lungs more ragged than before.

Bryn's free hand reached up to cup the side of her jaw, sending more waves of heat to Liv's core. There was no air in this hall, no place to breathe air that was clean of Bryn's overwhelming presence.

She needed air— she didn't want it, but she needed it.

She was ready to drown in Brynna, but there was a reason she couldn't…

right? Liv's free hand reached up to rest on Bryn's waist, needing to steady herself.

Her thumb dragged dangerously close to the curve of Bryn's breast, the thought making the remaining clear thoughts in her mind evaporate like shadows disappeared when a beam of light penetrated them.

Thoughts became fuzzier as Bryn moved to run her nose down the side of Liv's face, over her temple, and down her cheekbone.

The skin there flushed maroon with heat that continued to build between them.

Liv tipped her head back as Bryn continued to carve her way down her throat, her chest heaving as she tried to catch her breath .

Her cunt was throbbing with need already, something that she was sure Bryn could pick up on based on her obvious reaction to her touch.

And yet, they did not move further. She only continued her gentle ministrations, her soft lips grazing the sensitive skin behind Liv's ear once, twice, three times before moving down to trace the sharp line of her jaw.

Soon, Liv was unable to stop herself from pressing into Bryn's body. Her tall form seemed to engulf Bryn's shorter height, but the curves of their bodies lined up perfectly, Liv realized as she drowned in the closeness.

"Brynna," Liv breathed, so quiet that she wasn't sure she had even heard her.

All at once, Bryn shut down as if remembering who they were. Or so Liv thought until she pulled back far enough to see her face wracked with grief.

"I can't…," she breathed, taking a reluctant step back. "I'm sorry."

Rejection washed through Liv as she bit her bottom lip and took a shaking step back away from Bryn. The woman seemed to want to reach out to her, the look on her face yearning to explain, but Liv only shook her head slowly and gave a shaky smile.

Taking every ounce of her control, Liv smothered the hurt and said, "You don't owe me any explanation. We need to get our things ready to leave anyway…"

She trailed off, the action unfamiliar to her. Liv always knew what to say. Only Bryn Helvig, the true Heir of Flame, could make her speechless, it seemed.

Without waiting for a response, Liv turned to her door and entered it swiftly.

The next twenty minutes would be needed to bury whatever she was feeling for Maude's sister because it was becoming clear that Bryn didn't feel that way for Liv.

She'd experienced rejection before, but this hurt more somehow.

Twenty minutes to pull herself together. It would have to be enough.