Page 7

7

Reyla

I t didn’t take long to reach the training room, and we went inside.

Merrick braced the door partway open, speaking to those in the hall. “Surround the room. Don’t allow anyone to enter. Host wards and keep a tight watch.” He closed the panel and turned to lean against it, his hand flicking out. I could feel his own personal ward descend around us.

Another.

A third.

He kept adding them until I doubted even the fates themselves could batter their way inside.

“That should make things secure now,” he said.

“Until we leave the room.”

“I’m thinking of ways to handle this moving forward already. Trust me?”

I jerked out a nod.

His posture loosened, and he sent me a sly smile as his eyes glided down my frame. “That outfit does nothing for you.”

“I’m not taking it off.”

“A shame.”

I huffed. “You once said you loved how my ass looked in leather.”

“You make the outfit, not the other way around.” Bumping off the door, he strode over to stand directly in front of me.

“What happened in the hall?”

When he only stared at me, I realized I hadn’t phrased it correctly.

“The wizard who placed the curse knows what I’ve discovered,” I said.

He blinked.

“And they’re going to make sure I don’t make any further progress.”

“You’ve been clever right from the start.”

“They’re not going to give up.”

“Would you?”

“I wouldn’t do anything like this to someone. More than one person, actually; every generation of one family. Hence my need to learn as much as I can quickly, rip through the curse, and kill whoever crafted it.”

“I adore how ruthless you are. Go ahead. Ask your questions.” His eyes smoldered. “Unless you’d like to engage in a different sort of play.”

I flitted to the other side of the room, savoring the way he raked his fingers through his hair and grumbled. “We’re only here for questions, Merrick. We will do nothing else. ”

“For now.”

“I’m not going to argue with you about this. I’m not going to plead.”

“Though you might beg Lorant .” His lips twisted and the skin around his eyes tightened. “Oh, yes, you call him Lore .”

“I’m calling him Lorant now. I’m not sure why.”

For whatever reason, that sucked the air from his windram, so to speak. He blinked, staring at me. “Good.”

I tilted my head, watching his face. “Why good?”

“Reasons.”

Was it worth incorporating his “reasons” into my next question?

He dipped forward in a bow. “Will you allow for training at the same time?”

“I haven’t warmed up yet.”

“I’d be happy to warm you.”

“Stay where you are,” I growled. My emotions kept flipping around inside me. Despite all this, it was hard to dismiss how much I liked Merrick. Too much. I’d been close to loving him, and you couldn’t shut that off because you were angry. Especially when they’d had a valid reason for withholding information.

As for Lorant…

I wasn’t going to think about snarly night guy.

“Alright,” I said.

After we’d warmed up and eased through a series of moves, he strode over to the wall and selected two blades.

“I noted you’re ambidextrous.” He returned to the middle of the room, facing me.

“I wasn’t born that way but developing the skill paid off.” I pulled my own blades, the ones he’d given me, and advanced up to him, keeping enough distance between us to watch his face, his body. Study his moves. He was overdressed in his own leathers, but nothing would drag the taunt from my mouth.

Seeing him in any way, shape, or form made my skin quiver with need.

His lips curled up. “I like that I unsettle you, Wildfire.”

“I’m not committing to anything, especially when it relates to that . Fight. Answer my questions, please.” I needed to maintain some sort of control or I’d fall apart. Or take him up on his offer to climb his body. Kiss him. Drag him down to a mat and drive this heat between us to what I’d ached for last night. What little control I had over the tattered bits of my heart appeared to be fluttering in a wind determined to latch onto them and carry them away.

“I’ll be as honest as I can,” he said.

I hadn’t only gnashed my teeth for most of the night, I’d also thought about what I could ask and how I could phrase my questions. “You said you and Lorant share everything.” Odd how night guy was no longer Lore in my mind, though I wasn’t sure why.

I’d been scorched by the realization that if I was forced to pick between the two of them, I would not be able to decide. I’d wavered and gone to Merrick, but now that I knew they were the same person, I would not waver again.

Merrick blinked.

A dangerous calm rippled through his body. I adjusted my stance, knees loose, blades at the ready in my hands. This wasn’t the first time we’d sparred, but every time felt as if we were learning something new about each other. Today I was determined to discover it all.

“Hopefully you two don’t discuss intimate things.” How mortifying that would be.

A blood vessel ticked in his temple, and his lips thinned. “I don’t like to think of my wife with someone else, let alone hear about it from another male’s mouth.”

“Then don’t ask.”

He gave me a curt nod.

“You talk to each other, though not for long,” I said.

“The slice between day and night is much too thin.” His statement reminded me to keep this to yes-no questions. “Don’t dwell too long on my…facets. I’m a complex person. The fates know I’ve tried not to think about what happens when I’m unavailable. I focus on your time with me.” His lips quirked up, and his eyes gleamed with heat. “I hope you think about those particular moments as often as I do.”

“Keep this on topic, Merrick,” I said in a stern voice that I hoped didn’t betray the flames spiraling through me. This man ignited a craving inside me I didn’t know how to control.

He stepped forward on his toes, the movement precise. My heart jumped in a way it had no right to. I didn’t let him see it, though. He hadn’t earned that satisfaction, even if I couldn’t ignore the way his body flowed like water. This man made everything seem effortless. And he was much too confident about his ability to manipulate everything—including me.

He lunged, leading with his right blade. I blocked, the clang of steel-on-steel ringing in the room. A satisfying vibration shot up my arm. His second blade sliced toward my side, and I twisted, narrowly avoiding its edge as I pivoted out of reach. My boots scraped against the floor.

“Perfectly done, as always,” he said, circling me. His green eyes tracked my every move, gleaming with sharp cunning, but there was something else there too, something that made my skin feel too tight. “But not good enough.”

“Have you two been like this all your life?”

He held eye contact without blinking .

“You were split into Lorant and Merrick, snarly night guy and sweet, adorable day guy who?—”

“You find me sweet and adorable.”

Way to feed his ego. Thanks, Reyla.

He surged toward me, the edges of his blades gleaming in the light. This time, I stepped into him instead of away, parrying his strike with one blade while delivering an uppercut with the hilt toward his chin with the other. He tipped his body enough that I missed, though the steel might've shaved a few hairs off his pretty neck.

“If you haven’t always been like this,” I said, not panting, not yet. “You must’ve split at some time in your life.”

“He is snarly, isn’t he?” The satisfied grin he shot me made flames curl around my spine and dip lower.

“We’re here for me to ask questions and you to answer them.”

“A shame.” His voice dropped lower, wrapping around me as if he planned to encase me in his charm. Our blades clashed together overhead. A faint grunt escaped his lips as he leaned closer, forcing his strength against mine to make me relent and back away. “But predictable.”

“Return to my question.” I needed to keep this on track.

“Puberty can do odd things to a person, am I right?” His penetrating gaze met mine.

I whipped my hands together, breaking his hold, and whirled around, trying to gouge toward his side.

He quickly sidestepped and lashed out at my right flank.

A dart to the left saved most of my leathers. He was slowly cutting away bits of my tunic, but I would not allow him to slice all the way through. “You split in your teen years.”

He blinked. “My father died when I was ten?—”

“And him thirty. I’m sorry. You were a child, and no one that young should have to take on the responsibility of a kingdom. You should’ve had many years to prepare for something like that. What were you, fifteen?”

He held my gaze steady.

“Sixteen?” Once I reached the top, I’d work my way backward. “Seventeen?”

He blinked and thrust his right blade toward me. “Things have a way of catching up with a man.” I didn’t miss the way his breath brushed against the side of my face, warm and infuriatingly steady while I was beginning to pant. As I twirled away, I kept my eyes locked on his. I also hated how clearly unrattled he looked. Composed. Controlled. A smirk shadowed his mouth, as if this wasn’t a fight at all but a game he was enjoying far too much.

And I was losing both battles. It wasn’t easy to think, talk, and fight at the same time.

I was also too aware of how powerful his body felt against mine, of the heat radiating from him in waves, of his scent—clean with a hint of evergreen, plus something richer, something uniquely his own. I jerked back, spinning out of his reach, trying to untangle my thoughts along with the move.

As I backed away to catch my breath and regroup, he followed, stalked me. “A father’s advice is not always welcome, but it often contains details that can make a difference in his son’s life. I was wise to listen and hold his words close to my heart.”

“Your father shared what he knew.”

Merrick blinked, his blades poised to strike at any moment. A muscle in his right thigh twitched, and he came at me fast, slashing his blades in a lethal scissor motion. Instinct took over. I ducked low, feeling the draft of his weapons split the air over my head as I swiveled beneath them.

I tumbled forward and rolled, coming up on his left side, unleashing a quick series of strikes, making him step back as he twisted and blocked each one. He gave no smirk this time, no witty comment. Just the quick, efficient movement of his blades as he matched blow for blow, pouring cunning into every swing.

“Have you discovered much?” I grunted while slashing and dodging the attack he suddenly hosted on me. “You mentioned doing research.”

“Information can take years to unveil, correct?”

“Almost thirteen years. I’m sorry you haven’t learned it all.”

He sighed.

“I think your mother might’ve slept with your father’s advisor, who was your equivalent of Lorant.” I kept my voice steady despite our blades blurring between us. The ring of steel filled the room like a song neither of us wanted to end. “She suggested you might not be the king’s son but the advisor’s instead.”

“You've been busy.”

“That's me, always digging my fingers into everyone else's soil.”

“My mother is sorely misguided. She… Her guilt consumes her, though there’s clearly no cause.” Our blades clashed together overhead.

“In her heart, there is. She must feel she cheated.”

“She does. I love my mother, but even I’ll agree she doesn’t have much of a heart. Not recently, anyway.”

“She has enough heart to embrace you.”

“So far,” he said. “I’ve tried to ease her dismay as much as I could, but we, of course, cannot discuss the more intimate details.”

“Because you’re prevented from stating that when she slept with the advisor, she was actually with your father.”

“I am my father’s son. There’s no doubt about that.”

I could only bark out a pained laugh and slash upward with my left blade to block his series of furious blows. “She thinks if you die without an heir, she’ll be able to snatch the crown off my head and place it on her own.”

He jerked to the side, though I sliced off the tip of his tunic, leaving a patch of his smooth skin on his left flank exposed. “Irony can twist through every generation.”

One after another, each dying much too young.

Finding out why might lead me to a way to break the curse.

My movements slowed. While I enjoyed sparring, particularly with Merrick, a feeling of doom hung over everything we said, and that in itself was exhausting.

However, I couldn’t avoid speaking of this any longer. “Your thirtieth birthday will be here soon.”

He faltered but for only a second before his chin lifted and he met my gaze. “Five weeks and one day.”

“That’s not enough time.”

“We’d better make sure each moment counts.” His eyes sharpened, and he lunged, the edge of his right weapon flashing toward me.

I blocked, driving my left blade upward and angling my body away from the second strike I knew was coming. “Yes, no more games.”

It didn’t help that sparring with him always felt layered with everything else—unspoken words, unresolved emotions. Each strike we exchanged felt heavier than it should have, the clash of steel ringing louder, sharper, in my ears.

But at my words, his rhythm broke. I noticed it when his right blade dipped too far to the side. For a heartbeat, I told myself it was a natural slip, that Merrick was shaken by all of this. By me, by what we’d learned together, by the mess of secrets I’d exposed.

To my complete shock, he dropped one of his blades. It clattered on the floor beside us.

While I froze, processing the sound, his other blade followed. Silence stretched long and thin after, shrill enough to cut.

“What are you doing?” I breathed, my grip tightening around my own blades as my body instinctively adjusted for what must be a trick.

“I’m yours,” he said simply, his voice steady. His green eyes lightened to spring grass, the intensity there shifting to something solemn. He slid one step back, then another, lifting his hands empty and open in front of him. “This has never been a game, Reyla. Never been a way to manipulate you. I’ll work with you every day, right up until…” He shook his head, his thick, tousled hair fluttering across his shoulders. “No more fighting today.”

I sensed a double meaning in his words. Suspicious, I blinked at him. “No slick moves intending to force me to capitulate to whatever your latest whim might be?”

“No.” His arms dropped to his sides, leaving the path to his chest frighteningly, maddeningly clear. “I tease…too much.”

“You do.” Most of the time, I liked it, even when it sparked things inside me I wasn’t ready to feel.

“I’m yours to do with as you wish,” he said. “Lift your blades, wife, and come at me if that’s what you need. Hit me. Slice me. I can take anything but you hating me.”

“Merrick—”

“When you’re finished being angry, if you still care…” He stepped forward, into my space. “I’ll be here, waiting. Always. For you.”

I stumbled backward.

His jaw muscles tightened, and I expected him to follow. For him to challenge me, physically if not verbally.

Instead, his shoulders lowered, and his gaze dropped before returning to meet mine. So much desolation there. Vulnerability, too. His voice cratered, and he gestured to my blades. “If you feel you deserve justice, then take it from my body. I’ll stand in place and let you take vengeance for the pain I’ve caused. ”

“Stop it.” A band wrapped around my throat, choking off my wind. “I’m not looking for a grand gesture of sacrifice, Merrick.”

His head tilted, and he kept watching. Waiting for me to do something that I suspected would rip me apart. “What do you want, then?”

“I don’t know.” My voice came out small, as equally vulnerable as his. “I have a right to be mad at both of you.”

“You do.”

“And I also have a right to feel sad.” I’d allowed myself to start dreaming again, and now I was mourning the loss of something I might’ve never had.

“Sadness is a strength.”

I lifted my eyebrows, but didn’t speak, waiting for him to explain.

“I’ve been gouged wide open and sadness has only deepened the wound. For too long, I let it shape me, define everything I couldn't be. But then I realized that it wasn't the sadness itself that held power, it was what I did with it. I had to use it to sharpen my resolve, to remind me of what I was fighting for. That sadness is still there; it's not something you can truly ever shove away. But I learned to let it walk with me, not take the lead. Otherwise, it might've devoured me whole.”

How could I hold on to anything but the sweet start of love when he said something like that?

“I’m here,” he said, tapping the center of his chest. “I always will be.” His hands splayed apart farther. “If this is what it takes, if this is how you need to work through what I’ve done, I’m not going to stop you.”

“But… You had no control over what happened.” It wasn’t hard to see that now.

He blinked but remained stationary, wide open to wherever my anger might take me. “I need your trust. Ache for it, actually. But all I have to offer in exchange is me.”

My arms felt heavier with each pulse of my heart. I almost hated him for standing there. For waiting. For putting the next move in my hands.

I stepped over to him and placed the tip of one blade against the smooth plane of his chest.

He did not move.

“What are you doing?” I hissed, my hand shaking badly enough I almost sliced through the leather protecting his skin.

“What I should’ve done from the start. You deserve better than me. There’s no denying that. If you want it, my life is yours. End it now and you can walk away.”

“Why are you doing this to me?” I barked out, tears I didn’t have the right to shed tightening in my throat. “After all this, why do you still make me care?”

“I don’t want to twist your emotions or make you do anything that doesn’t come from your heart.” His voice trembled, and hearing that shake was enough to break something inside me when nothing else ever could.

I wanted to throw my blades to the floor and storm from the room. Stop looking at his empty hands, his chest vulnerable and exposed. Stop thinking about how close I came to slicing through whatever we’d started to build together.

I needed to hate him.

But even now, I couldn’t.

I dropped my blades, dropped my mental guards, and damn me, I dropped the walls around my heart, opening myself up to this man again.

His mouth tilted upward, but it wasn’t a smirk. Not even a grin. It was something more broken than that .

Merrick knelt, slowly, deliberately, his knees landing hard on the floor.

His gaze never left mine. “I will do whatever it takes, Reyla. Anything. Just name it.”