Page 12

12

Reyla

“ W ho hurt you?” Lorant growled, his feral gaze scanning the room.

I was too far gone to appreciate how willing he was to save me.

“Fucking flow,” I mumbled with mortification gnawing through my spine. But I was in too much pain to care if Lorant snarled at me, or if he tried to drag me up to the tower room to make me work on my magic. “Damn, fucking flow.”

“You…” As if he’d been mortally wounded, he collapsed onto the bed beside me, looking entirely too comfortable on my mattress. “You have your flow ?” He blinked at the ceiling. “You have your flow. How is this possible?”

Really?

“It fucking rips me apart each month,” I hissed. “If you haven’t learned about a woman’s flow by this point in your life, it’s too late now. Go away.”

“That’s why you didn’t come to me,” he said, his voice much too chipper. “You’re not avoiding me.”

“Don’t sound too happy about it.”

He rolled onto his side to face me, his gaze open and… I could be misreading him, but he appeared almost boyishly sweet. Totally not Lorant—yet it was. “But I am happy about it because you’re speaking with me. Looking at me. Not avoiding me.”

“ I am not happy. I’m in pain. It’s torture, and I hate it, and right now, with you smiling in a goofy way, I can’t believe I’m seeing in Lorant instead of Merrick, I hate you as well.”

“Merrick’s smiles are goofy?”

Leave it to him to take only that from my statement. “ His smiles are gorgeous. The prettiest smiles I’ve ever seen.”

“You said goofy. While my smiles are…”

“Condescending. Irritating. Snide.” I hated how his presence made my pulse jump, how he seemed to command a room with his sheer will alone. Yet there was a part of me that didn’t entirely dislike it. Such strength. Such dominance. It could be comforting. If I had to face down a foe, wouldn’t his relentlessness be the shield I needed?

“I like that you can see me in such a flattering light.” The touch of a laugh came through in his voice.

Why in all the fates did he sound so full of life when I wanted to slide into my agony and die?

“You’re also overbearing. Arrogant. Insufferable.” His cold words could cut me as sharply as any blade, and his arrogance grated, a constant friction that left me feeling gouged open and exposed. But behind his sneer, if I squinted through the cracks, I could see his pain. Pain he didn’t trust me to heal .

Trust—did I even want that with Lorant?

“Those are positive attributes,” he said. “Not flaws.”

“Lorant,” I growled. “Go away, or I’ll start listing all of Merrick’s wonderful attributes.” I rubbed my poor aching belly. Damn flow. Damn Lorant for seeing me weakened this way.

“You don’t hate me,” he marveled. “You like me. Maybe even more than like me, but there it is.”

“Gracious. Compassionate. Empathetic.”

“He is all that. I’ll admit it.” His fingertips traced across my shoulder, and damn me as well, because I wanted to drown in his touch until it blocked all the pain.

“Selfless. Optimistic. Charming.”

“We already agreed I can be charming.”

“Lorant! Shut the fuck up. Better still, go away. Don’t haunt me again for a few days. After that, I’ll be back to my old self, and we can verbally spar once more.”

“Do you promise to come back to the tower, to tease me and look at me with lust in your eyes? To carve that L into the floor for everyone to see? I want to climb up onto the roof and sit with you in my arms while we share what little joy we can find in this world.”

The stark vulnerability in his voice broke me, a tough challenge when agony kept stabbing through my belly.

It distracted me.

It made me…

Alright, it was making me love him when nothing else ever could.

“You know,” Lorant said, his voice a touch smug as he adjusted his position on my bed like he planned to remain here for the night. “I could help you.”

I shot him a glare and dragged my arm over my eyes to block him out. “Are you going to wave your dark, broody magic around and whisk away my flow? What exactly do you think you can do, Lorant?”

“That sharp tongue of yours always thrills me,” he drawled, his grin I spied past my arm making him seem almost playful. If I hadn’t been curled into a tight ball of agony, I might’ve hurled something at his insufferably gorgeous face. A pillow, at least. “You forget how I eased your seasickness on the ship, Wildfire.” His tone lightened, taking on a sweetness this man should not be able to host. “Do you remember that?”

I did remember.

My arm dropped onto my thigh, and I stayed silent, staring at the wall past him even as my body betrayed me with a twinge of awareness. Lorant was appealing in his rough, volatile way, and now that I wasn’t trying to shove him into a separate mental box from Merrick, I found myself seeing the whole picture. Two parts, one man. Messy. Complicated. Absolutely infuriating. But incredibly appealing.

I wasn’t running from this anymore. It wasn’t betrayal to care about them both, seeing as they were essentially the same person.

“What will happen to you if I break the curse?” I realized the moment I said it that he wouldn't be able to answer. I needed to phrase it as a yes or no question. “What I mean is, if I break the curse, will you cease to exist?” Asking the question yanked me out of my self-pity with the force of a drawn bowstring snapping to whip back at my face.

He shrugged.

Ah…shit. Now I was experiencing a new sort of pain, one centered in my chest, and it was much worse than the agony caused by my flow.

The world felt too small. Too quiet. And I couldn't make myself speak to break the wretchedness of it swirling around us.

His answer gave me something to think about, but now wasn't the time, not when torturous waves were swamping me, and he was lying beside me looking much too solemn, even for Lorant. Part of me wanted to say something reassuring to get his feral, piercing green eyes off me. The other part knew that wouldn’t work. Whatever I said needed to be pointed, careful. The curse was bound to them as if held them in an elderwood tree’s relentless grip. Every attempt to explain would end with them gasping, hacking for air.

“How much pain are you in?” he asked.

“It’s bearable,” I lied, trying to breathe through the sharp surges smacking through me. Another jab gouged at my belly, drawing a low hiss from between my clenched teeth. My vision blurred as I was consumed by the fresh flare of pain.

“I’m sorry. For everything I can’t say or do. For being…me when sometimes, alright, I’ll admit it, I’m not always nice.”

“No,” I breathed.

“I would do anything to make it up to you. This could be my first groveling. Will you let me help you? Please?”

“Go ahead,” I whispered. “Do your worst.”

His words skated across my skin. “For this, Wildfire, I’ll do my best.”

He shifted upright, folding his long legs beneath him as he turned to face me fully. His calloused hands lifted, palms up, and I watched through narrowed eyes as he tugged elements from the air. The stillness around him grew, charged by the faint slither of magic gliding between his fingers. Flickers of silver and cool indigo wove together, condensing into a cup that gleamed in his shadowed hand. Steam rose from the liquid inside, the scent herbal yet also spicy, soothing in a strange, lingering way.

“You'll need to sit up,” he said.

I eyed the drink like it might sprout fangs and bite me. “What is it? ”

His gaze didn’t waver, his scar catching the light as his jaw tightened. “Trust me, Reyla.”

The words were simple, but they hit hard. It wasn’t just the physical pain unraveling me; something deeper churned inside, messy and knotted and entirely Lorant-shaped. I let out a low breath as he slid an arm beneath my shoulders and eased me up me enough to take the cup.

The first sip tasted bitter, but the second held hints of sweetness. It sent warmth through my veins. It seeped into my limbs, coating the edges of the pain, softening it. After I’d drained the last drop, he magicked the cup away.

He helped me lie back down and laid beside me again. This time, his fingers settled lightly on my stomach. “I’ll rub until it works,” he said, as though that was a normal thing for this man to do. As if him offering didn’t make everything, including my heart, stumble.

“Lorant—”

“Rest.” His voice came out sweet again. “Let me take care of you.”

With steady, circular pressure, his rough hand broke through the tension in my belly. I resisted at first, keeping myself coiled inward, but the potion and his touch pried me open little by little. The pain eased as warmth pooled low, finally unfurling enough to let me breathe deeply again.

“It’s fading, isn’t it?” he said with only Merrick’s kindness.

For now, it was Lorant’s.

“Yes. Thank you. It was…” I swallowed, remembering the sharp dizzying clutch that had knocked me flat earlier. “It felt like it was trying to rip me in half.”

His hand stilled for a breath before he continued with a gentle stroke. “You should never have to feel pain like that. I’ll make sure you don’t. ”

“You'll slay all my attacking flow beasts?”

“If you'll let me.”

His words hooked me harder than they should’ve.

Then it hit me that I might not have another flow while these men were here with me. If the elder was right in her prediction, I would soon be with child.

Whose child?

“If Merrick dies on his thirtieth birthday.” My words came out in a guttural, tortured croak. “Will you die too?”

He closed his eyes and left them that way.