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My heart had been shattered into pieces with Wrath’s departure.

But it had also been shattered when I’d watched my father grieve in battle, raise his sword and strike down his enemy while he shed tears of unbridled agony.

I knew his family had been burned at the stake, and to know the woman he’d loved before my mother had burned…

and so had his daughter, was just too much.

Now I understood why he loved me and treasured me so deeply.

Why my middle name was Lena. Why he’d wanted a daughter instead of a son.

If only I could tell Hawk this, he would understand my father’s favoritism—but I could never explain how I knew.

“I’m sorry I sailed away on that journey.

” Tears burned in the backs of my eyes, and I tried so hard to fight them, to sheathe the pain I carried for my father.

Perhaps this was why he didn’t want me to know.

The hardness in his eyes and face suddenly softened when he heard the sincerity of my words. He turned rigid, frozen in place by the agonized words I spoke.

“I’m sorry that I put you through that.” I never would have gone if I’d known what he’d suffered. If I’d understood the pain and terror it would cause him. If I’d known he’d already lost a daughter once.

His softness waned as he studied me, desperately trying to understand the source of my words. “Why do you say this, Lily?”

“All I thought about was myself. Not you and Mom.”

“ Zunieth , it’s not your job to worry about me and your mother.”

“Even so…I’m sorry for the pain I caused you.”

He continued to stare at me, his eyes a mixture of confusion and emotion, but he didn’t press me with questions to understand where this began.

“You can’t be proud of who you are without acknowledging the suffering it took to make you.

It was a difficult time for your mother and me, but it taught me to have faith in the daughter I raised, to believe that she would prevail without my protection.

The same journey taught you resilience and strength, showed you have what it takes to survive, that you will succeed as queen once that day comes.

It was difficult for both of us, but it’s also made us better.

” His hand went to my arm. “Don’t carry my suffering as your burden.

It’s my job to worry incessantly and deeply for your well-being every single day that I draw breath—and I consider it a blessing to do so. ”

I sniffed to steady the tears, but that made them squeeze from my eyes.

His eyes frantically shifted back and forth between mine. “Lily, are you sure there’s nothing else wrong?”

“Yes.” I sniffed again and forced the tears to stop. “I just…” I swallowed my emotions and forced myself to regain my calm. “I know I’m a blessing to you. But you’re also a blessing to me.”

Once I was in the privacy of my villa, I let the tears stream free.

It was an ugly sob, the kind that made me gasp for breath, made my hands hide my face even though there was no one there to witness my tears. My heart ached and my chest squeezed. Everything hurt.

“ Xivin .” Big hands gently squeezed my wrists and started to pull my hands from my face.

I gasped then turned away from him, leaving his hold.

I was shocked he was there, but deep in the throes of my pain, I didn’t react to it.

My back remained to him to hide my blotched and puffy face, to hide my weakness that I never showed to anyone.

I cried so hard I couldn’t even find the words to respond to his presence.

He moved into me, hooked his arms across my chest, and gently tugged me into him, holding me from behind.

My hands automatically grabbed on to his forearms because it was comforting to be squeezed. My deep breaths slowly faded, and I took a long descent to calm. My chest rose and fell with big swells, but they slowly decreased as my eyes ran dry.

His chin rested on my head as he waited patiently.

I was broken by my father’s grief but also overjoyed that Wrath had returned to me. It was the biggest contradiction of emotions I’d ever felt in my life.

He gently shifted me in his arms, at first seeing if I would cooperate instead of fight, and then he turned me completely to face him, his eyes on my beet-red face. He took me in with a moment of silence before he cupped my cheek. “What happened?”

“I didn’t think you’d come back…” I turned into his palm, severing our eye contact because I didn’t want to watch him look at me, see the mess I’d become.

“At first, I needed time…and then duty required me elsewhere.”

I was still angry he’d left me for so long. Still mortally wounded by his absence. “You can’t just do that.” I stepped out of his grasp and rejected his touch, even though I longed for it like a warm fire in the snow.

He let me go.

“I said I needed time?—”

“And I didn’t know if you were ever going to return.” I felt my chest swell once more with angry emotion. “How was I supposed to feel? One day turned into two, and then two turned into seven, and then I feared that we were done. Who the fuck does that?”

He stared me down without needing to blink, that intensity white-hot. “I will always return, Xivin .” He stepped closer to me, shirtless and a powerhouse of muscle and warm skin. “You know that.”

My eyes shifted away when I couldn’t handle his stare.

“ Always .”

The depth of his sincerity made me shift my eyes back.

His stare was more intense than before, angry at my doubt and stirred by my turmoil.

His reassurance was like sunshine to my petals, warmth to my soil. It made me feel so much that my emotion immediately shifted back to dread. “When did this happen?” I spoke barely above a whisper, to myself and not loudly.

He gave no reaction, so it was unclear whether he heard it or not. Until he spoke. “The moment our eyes met on a dead island with trees made of stone. That’s when it happened, Xivin .”

My ducts had run dry, and now my throat felt like sandpaper. A drought had overcome me.

“Tell me your sorrow.”

I gave a slight shake of my head.

“I need to know why I was met with your rivers of tears. I need to know I didn’t cause them, and if I did, I need to know that as well so I can plead for your forgiveness.

” He was barefoot and bare-chested, regarding me like a lover who shared my space, with the hard density of a stone statue and the presence of a mighty king.

I took a heavy breath. “My father and I spoke in the courtyard before I came home. I grieved for his loss, even though he doesn’t know the source of my sadness.

I told him I was sorry that I left on the journey.

I told him how grateful I am that he’s my father.

I don’t want to see him differently, but it’s hard not to. ”

Instead of growing angry at the mention of my father, he kept his stare subdued. “I don’t respect your father’s abandonment of his oath. But I respect him immensely as a father. The way he loves you reminds me…” He paused, and then his throat shifted when he swallowed.

“Reminds you of what?” I whispered.

He never answered. “Not all people are meant to be parents. But he was always meant to be a father. I hope you judge him less for his obvious favoritism toward you. You’re the second chance he thought he might never have. You’re the balm to his wounds—which are still raw to this day.”

“I wish my brother knew.”

“Perhaps when Hawk confronts him, he’ll share that tale.”

I would never forget the image in my mind, the way my father battled three grown men with the ferocity of a dragon.

He never battled me that way, showed a strength that only a god could possess.

The fire in his veins was fueled by the forges of his rage—and those fires might never burn again.

“I don’t think he will.” I didn’t think he ever intended to tell us about Vivian… or Lena.

Wrath’s arms were idle by his sides, and he studied my face with calm. “That loss is not yours to grieve.”

“She was my sister…my half sister.”

“But if she had lived, you would never have been born.”

“It still makes me sad. I wonder if my mother knows…”

“She does,” he said quietly.

Now I understood why the white flowers were always at their grave—because my father still loved them both…even after all this time.

After a heavy silence, Wrath moved into me again, this time cupping my face with both hands.

The distance between our hearts crippled my soul, so I melted into his touch and stepped closer to him right away, my lips finding his with softness. I missed the touch of his skin, the way he smelled, the way he could say so much without saying a word.

He kissed me back and gently pulled my bottom lip into his mouth before he let it go. “You aren’t mad at me anymore.”

“No, I am.”

He pulled back slightly to look at me.

“But I fucking missed you.”

He never smiled, but there was a hint of it now, one corner of his lips rising.

He slid his hand into my hair and pulled it farther back before he dipped his head and kissed me.

The kiss was slow and purposeful, full of passion and depth, not lust and desire.

It was how he always kissed me, like he wanted all of me, not just a temporary piece.

He scooped his hands underneath my thighs, and he lifted me into him before he carried me to my bedroom.

As always, he tenderly laid me on the bed before he slipped off my shoes and undressed me.

He stood to his full height before he removed his bottoms, thick and tall like a mighty tree, his veins as roots.

It was hard to stay mad when he looked like that.

Six and a half feet of man and muscle and power.

His knees hit the bed, and he moved over me, making me sink into the mattress before he folded me the way he wanted me.

Holding himself above me, he looked down at me, eyes focused on my face and not my body, looking at me like my eyes were stars in the sky or sunset on a summer evening.