Page 67 of When the Wicked Sing (The Leruna Sea #1)

Taking a steady breath, Mariana walked down the ornate hallway, her heart skipping, her hands shaking. Anxiety was choking her, the weight of everything she had to do smothering her. She could barely breathe.

“Queen Mariana,” a flat male voice rang down the hallway. She turned to find a servant holding a silver tray in their hand with an envelope on top.

As he approached, he said, “Apologies for the abruptness, Your Majesty. I was instructed to deliver this to you immediately.” He held the tray out toward her, the envelope beckoning.

Mariana’s brows furrowed as she picked it up and opened it. “Who’s it from?”

She barely heard the name as she began to read. The words tightened her chest as they seemed to lift from the page, staining her vision. Squeezing her eyes shut, she crushed the letter in her hand.

Glancing up at the lanky male, she firmly asked, “Where is he? ”

As soon as he told her, Mariana marched through the palace until she found the right door and began knocking furiously. The sound of her fist hitting the wood echoed down the empty, bland hall of the servants’ quarters.

A moment later, the door swung open. Mariana threw the crumpled paper ball at Dax, hitting him in the chest.

“You bastard!” She shoved him backward and slammed the door shut behind her. “How dare you! A goodbye letter? After everything we’ve been through!”

His shock dripped away into sadness as he stared at the crumpled parchment inked with heartache.

Dax sighed, his hands settling on his hips. “You don’t understand,” he whispered.

Mariana’s eyes filled with tears. “Then explain it to me. Explain to me why in that letter you told me that all you wanted was to belong to me, and yet at the end, all it said was goodbye.” When he didn’t say anything, she shook her head. “How could you do that to me?”

“We both know this can’t go on anymore. You’re a queen. After everything that’s happened—”

“Lies!” she shouted.

Dax shook his head. “I didn’t lie to you, Mari.”

“Then what is that?” she yelled, her voice cracking as she gestured toward the balled-up letter. She stepped toward him. “All this time, I thought what we had between us was special. You’re now telling me that all of it was for nothing?”

Finally, his eyes shot up to hers. “No,” he said firmly. “I’m telling you that you’re better off without me. Destruction is all I leave behind, and I have been fighting to keep that from happening to you.”

Mariana scoffed. “Oh, sure, like you have an almighty power to reign down chaos at any given moment. You’re not that powerful, Dax! That’s only an excuse—”

“You are everything to me! Don’t you get it!” Dax shouted. His hands gripped her shoulders, then eased away as he stepped back. Mariana stared at him in shock as he scrubbed his face with his hands before swiping them over his short hair and resting them on his neck.

“You are everything to me,” he repeated softly, the words trembling with restraint.

His gaze lifted to meet hers, slow and deliberate.

“But Halia gave me a warning. My divided loyalties threaten her—and she has the power to destroy me. To destroy my family.” He swallowed hard, his voice dropping even lower.

“And now, you.” He looked away, jaw tightening.

“I’ve lost everything before. I can’t let that happen again. ”

The pain on his face made her chest feel like it was caving in, and all she wanted to do was make it better.

The fire in her heart died down to a smoldering pile of ash.

Gathering her strength, she took a hesitant step toward him.

“Halia doesn’t scare me,” she said softly, taking another step.

“What scares me is losing you.” When she tilted her head to look up at him, she rested a hand on his cheek.

“Tell me what’s going on in that mind of yours. ”

“You don’t want to know,” he whispered darkly, trying to pull away, but she settled both her hands on his face and held firm .

“Yes, I do. Don’t think you can make decisions for me. You can’t.”

With a sigh, Dax rested his hands on her hips, one corner of his mouth tilting up. “That’s right, you’re a queen now,” he said, glancing at the crown nestled into her hair.

“Yes, I am. And you have to do as I say.” She smirked up at him and wiped her thumb over his paint-stained cheek. “To start, you’re going to show me what you were up to in that room and why you’re covered in paint.”

With a heavy sigh and a glimmer of anticipation, Dax took her by the hand and pulled her toward the open door behind him.

Mariana’s jaw dropped as she peered inside.

Small jars of every color imaginable lined the back of the room.

Light spilled in from the large window on the left, glinting off the glass jars like a radiant rainbow.

Easels and canvases were stacked on the right beside a desk covered in so much paint that it was impossible to know what type of wood it was made of.

And in the center, resting on an easel, was a painting of her.

Mariana touched her lips as she stared at the artwork in awe.

The image was from when she had been in Kythera.

She was sitting on the balcony, wrapped in the fur blanket, her hair off to the side, exposing the column of her neck.

Her face was painted in every shade of the sunset they’d witnessed that evening.

It was angled in a way that indicated he had painted it the way he remembered as he sat beside her.

“I’ve never seen myself look like that before,” she breathed. Her eyes scanned every stroke of paint, every detail from her tattooed shoulder to the subtle hint of the scar on her face .

“Look like what?”

Mariana blinked back tears as she realized how he made her feel. “Like someone who just emerged from a storm. Strong, brave … beautiful.” Her voice cracked, and she couldn’t recall the last time someone had made her feel this way.

Dax lifted her hand and placed a gentle kiss on it. “I remember that moment so vividly. I couldn’t get it out of my head, so I put it down on canvas, thinking it would help me in some way. Looking at you while the setting sun lit up your face … that was the moment I knew.”

Mariana pulled her eyes away from the easel and gazed at him. “Knew what?”

He swallowed hard, his voice dropping to a near whisper. “Without you, there’s no light in my world.”

If a heart could sing, Mariana’s would have been lost in a serenade of melodies beyond her control.

She took a step toward him and pulled his head to hers, resting their foreheads together. His strong arms slid around her waist.

“Never write a goodbye letter to me ever again,” she whispered in quiet demand.

“Never.”

With that word written in ink on her soul, she gently brought her lips to his.

Breathing him in, she began washing away the contents of the heartbreaking letter from her mind.

She’d never forget the way she felt when she read his confession of caring too much for her, that he couldn’t risk his darkness infecting all the light she reflected .

Pulling back from their kiss, Dax dragged a finger under the strap of her dress, which had been revealed when the shimmering cover fell off one shoulder.

“Why are you wearing something a fae would wear?” His words were low, caressing every curve and making her breath uneven.

“It was given to me for the party tonight,” she breathed. Her skin shivered as his finger began dragging the strap down. “The invite said, ‘come wearing art.’”

Dax’s lips lifted. “Mari, you don’t need any of this. You’re already a masterpiece.”

The shimmering layer fell to the floor.

“Dressing like a fae won’t change that,” he whispered against her neck.

The other strap slipped down her shoulder, and her breath hitched.

“I wouldn’t want to cause a scene,” she gasped when his tongue caressed the sensitive spot below her jaw. He chuckled lightly before pulling back to meet her eyes.

“Your very presence causes a scene. A devastatingly beautiful scene. I’ll show you.”

Cool air swept over her skin as the rest of the dress fell away, pooling at her feet.

Mariana gasped when Dax lifted her into his arms, her legs wrapped around his waist.

He set her down on the edge of a desk splattered with old, dried paint and kept her knees tight to his hips. His eyes roamed every inch of her as though he was marveling at her beauty .

The strangest sensation rippled over her body. She blushed, suddenly hyperaware of how exposed her body was to him, the brush of her hair against her breasts, and the crown sitting heavy on her head.

The truth of what the crown represented still weighed heavily upon her. She reached up to pull it off, but Dax stopped her.

“Leave it. You’re a queen, and I’ll only treat you as such.”

Her breath lodged in her throat as they locked eyes.

This was the moment, she realized, when a siren found her fae.

Her mate. And she would do anything to protect him.

The weight she’d felt before lifted. Like a hand pulling her to safety from a rogue wave, Mariana realized how much his words, his presence, calmed the storm inside her.

She was so in love with him, he’d never understand. And it terrified her.

Dax dragged his hands down her hips, over her legs, to her ankles, then stopped. He frowned and glanced down at the sandals on her feet.

“What have they done to you?” he exclaimed softly, making her laugh.

He released the straps and pulled the sandals off.

She breathed a sigh of relief when she felt cool air on her dangling feet.

“Thank you, I thought I’d never be free of them,” she confessed. Then Dax shoved her knees farther apart, and her smile dipped. It was then that she felt a different sort of storm building within her. The kind of storm that was pure anticipation and longing. The kind she could never deny.

She found the edge of his shirt and lifted it over his head, revealing the smooth, rippled muscle of his stomach.

Mariana lightly touched his chest, her hand settling over his heart.

It was beating hard, and she slowly lifted her eyes to his.

He was so close she could see the flecks of copper in his irises and remembered the first time they had been this close.

Back when she was his captive, she wanted nothing more than to be released.

Now, all she craved was to be trapped in his arms. To be pressed against him again.

He slid his hands up her hips, up the sides of her waist, until they grazed the curves of her breasts. Lifting them higher still, he settled them on either side of her jaw, his thumbs caressing her cheeks.

“Don’t stop,” she breathed.

His eyes darkened, and their lips collided.