Page 74

MARA

I sat in my chair, feeling harrowed as the aircraft touched down on the tarmac at Fort Warren. I heard as the propeller blades slowed and the whirring of the engine finally quieted down.

“?Primita?” I blinked and then looked up to see Javier. His sweet smile and exotically handsome face looked down on me with caring eyes. “?Estás bien?”

I couldn’t smile. I couldn’t even force it. Wes was flipping switches on the console of the Valor, talking to a Northern soldier that had boarded the plane.

“I’m fine,” I lied. He grimaced. We might have spent the last two years apart, but Javi knew me well enough to know that I wasn’t fine. Not even a little bit.

I slumped back in my chair, feeling the buzz of adrenaline evaporating, leaving me as nothing more than a heap of fatigue. That whole thing had been mighty wicked. I was still trying to figure out how the hell Wes managed to fly the plane, or how on earth we managed to survive .

But not all of us did.

I watched as a Northern soldier called for assistance. When three other men arrived, they worked in pairs to carry out the pilot…and Matias.

They didn’t even bother calling for a medic.

They were dead.

He was definitely dead.

My eyes glazed over, remembering how his body shuddered with his last breath. The sounds of him choking on his own blood ambushing my ears, overwhelming my senses.

I closed my eyes and my whole body crumpled at the memory still too fresh, too horribly painful.

“Mara?”

I jumped, startled by the intrusion, and shifted my gaze to Wes. He crouched down in front of me, placing a hand on my cheek, and instantly I was ensnared by the depths of his golden eyes burning with brilliant hues of amber.

“Wes?” I acknowledged him. “Are you okay?”

He gave me a weak smile. “I’m okay.” Leaning forward, he rested his head against mine, and breathed. It was only a minute. But he needed it…like he was trying to gather the pieces of himself back together. “What about you? Are you okay? Did you get hurt at all?”

I nodded, trying desperately to hold back my tears, to pretend that I was fine.

But then I was shaking my head no , and the knot in my throat was too great, and the tightness in my chest too fierce.

And then I was sobbing. I collapsed, my face falling into my hands as gasps fell with strangled breaths through my cries.

Arms were around me then, holding me tight, stroking my hair, trying to save me from the torment I felt inside. But there was no saving me. There was no escaping that stupid fucking darkness that was threatening to swell once more and consume me whole.

I just sobbed, drenching the ruined fabric of his uniform, and Wes just held me until I couldn’t cry anymore.

** *

WES

Someone had to file the report, and as the ranking officer on the team, the duty fell to me.

I’d get to it.

Sooner or later, I’d write the fucking thing. Explain how it went down. Explain why Matias was dead. Explain why we blew the fucking bombs early to give us a chance to survive.

I’d get to it.

But Mara was—and always had been—my priority. Perhaps that made me a shitty soldier or a lousy, fucking king, but I didn’t care.

Mara first. Always Mara first.

Always.

She needed me now. She needed me to hold her, to console her, to comfort her. I failed to be there the first time. She grieved her brother alone in a fucking prison, and then she suffered at the hands of my own damn father. And the whole thing nearly destroyed her.

Nearly destroyed us .

But I wouldn’t fail her now…not again.

So no matter how many times Krous paged me…

No matter how many times my mother demanded my presence…

They could all fucking wait .

I turned off my tab and shoved the damn thing in a drawer. I locked the door to my room and left explicit orders to the staff not to be disturbed. And then I dedicated myself to Mara.

It started with stripping her tattered uniform and bloodied garments from her body and then assessing her injuries. The medic at Fort Warren had said she sprained her left shoulder and suffered a mild concussion. But all in all, she was okay—bruised, scratched, and battered, but okay.

What scared me more than anything was how hollow she’d become in the span of a few hours. From sobbing in my arms, to being nothing more than a ghost of herself, she was lost in her own mind once more.

And that. Fucking. Terrified me.

I couldn’t lose her again…not so soon after I had just found her.

After stripping my own ruined clothing, I coaxed her into the shower, allowing the water to warm and the bathroom to fill with steam before I drew her in.

The water soaked through her hair—poured down her face, neck, and between her breasts.

But she seemed lost within herself, her eyes unseeing as they stared off.

I washed her hair. Then lathered a sponge with my soap—eucalyptus opening my lungs as I inhaled deeply—and scrubbed the evidence of the day’s harrowing events off her soft skin. When I got to her tattoo, my chest squeezed like a vice, and I stopped breathing.

Her wings.

Her wings gave her courage. Gave her the opportunity to fly.

And fuck she was a beautiful thing. A beautiful deadly thing.

In less than a year, I witnessed this girl go from trembling in the shadows of her parents’ fucked-up basement to a woman who was lethal. And together, we’d overcome so much. From hordes of hounds, to Telvian soldiers, to the ruthlessness that was my own father.

Together, we’d surmounted it all, and when one of us dared to give up, the other made sure it didn’t happen.

Twice I had resigned myself to death, and twice she refused to leave me.

You stay, then I stay…always.

Fucking always …

I refused to let her fall back into the shadows. Refused to let her light go out. Refused to allow those wings to be bound by her own hands.

Hell no .

Mara was mine, my promised. And I loved her too damn much to let her fall now, not when she was so close to flight. So close to finally becoming the woman she was always meant to be.

Not a broken thing.

Not pieces of sea glass strewn across a beach.

But a phoenix rising into the air, overcoming her self-doubt and truly embracing what she was capable of.

Mara needed to soar, and I wanted her too.

I wanted Mara to rise .

Her hair clung to her skin, framing her face like a heavy cloak, and her eyes remained trained on the floor.

One hand on her hip, the other on her shoulder, I turned her around to face me.

Damn, she was gorgeous. Even in sorrow and lost within herself, she was a breathtaking sight.

And I still remembered the first day I laid eyes on her.

My heart stopped that day.

With one look, I had transformed from stone to rose petals.

And then her voice—hearing the sound as it curled inside my head—it drove me mad.

But what captivated me more than anything else were her eyes. They bewitched me. They shackled me in her temple, and I was all too happy to sacrifice myself to her.

But I didn’t see her eyes now. They were clouded. Unseeing. Lost.

I took her chin in my hand and slowly tilted her head up to me.

She obeyed. Eyelids lifting, eyes shifting, meeting mine at long last. But they were empty…

silent as a crypt. Gone was the fire that I knew burned deep inside her.

The shadows of her mind snuffing out the flame and trapping my goddess in her own emotional cell.

No.

That couldn’t happen.

That wasn’t going to work for me.

I wanted my bride back .

“Mara,” I whispered. Watched the water cascade around her eyes, down her cheeks, and to those sweet lips. “Come back to me.”

She blinked. A subtle frown tipping those lips in the wrong direction as her eyes remained lifeless.

I leaned forward. Nuzzled her nose. Rested my forehead against hers. “I know it hurts. I know none of us thought this would happen. But don’t disappear from me.” Both my hands encircled her waist and drew her forward, flushing her body against mine.

And fuck, did she feel good against me. But this wasn’t about lust. This was my desperation for her to come back to me. For her to find herself once more.

She moved, her hands coming to rest on my chest—skin against skin—but she remained silent. Not even a whimper.

I closed my eyes then, swallowing hard the fear that rattled within me, calling forth the tempest that always toiled inside.

“Love,” I whispered again, pressing her firmer against me.

“Please…don’t disappear inside of yourself.

Don’t go where I can’t follow.” My eyes opened.

Watched as she blinked. Brushed my nose against hers.

“I love you, and I’ll help you through this.

But I can’t help you if you disappear again.

Please…stay with me, Mara. Stay with me. ”

Her body stiffened in my arms. Breath caught in her lungs, heart frozen in time. And her eyes whispered to me. Told me she was there, deep inside, smothered under the heavy weight of such an awful loss. But they spoke.

Her eyes spoke to me—a whisper. A mutter. A hushed cry carried on the wind.

But they spoke.

I’m drowning , they said. I’m losing and suffocating and writhing inside.

I stilled. Felt my heart seize inside my chest. She was still there…

My Mara.

My love.

My promised .

“Wes?” she finally murmured, her eyes glassy. They muttered and uttered and begged.

“I’m here, love. I’m right here.” I held her tighter, wrapped my arms around her, willing the fire of my soul to reignite hers.

“Kiss me.”