Page 147 of Thorn Season
I tried to shake my head, but Erik’s grip wouldn’t allow for my denial; the movement lanced me with pain.
“You’re wrong,” I breathed, hearing my own wretched uncertainty.
Erik must have heard it too, because his laughter rippled across my neck. “I see how you ache, remember? Don’t you know why it hurts you, far more than others? Why you must constantly battle against the strain?” He inhaled against me, and on the cool exhale, whispered, “The greater the power, the greater the need for release.”
Goose bumps prickled me all over.
I remembered the dense petal-peeling sensation of reaching into my specter. The waves that had poured out upon discovering Father’s body—the startling layers of a power I’d never wanted to explore.
Because I’d been too afraid to embrace the core of myself.
“My only error,” Erik said, “was in overestimating how much nourishment you would actually require... before you unleashed yourself.”
His free hand drifted to his ribs—to the place I’d injured when I’d struck him in the ballroom—and fear gripped me for one knife-sharp second. But as he drew back, I saw none of the icy anger I’d anticipated. Only heat.
“I’d dreamed about your specter.” His thumb glided down to caress my cheek. “How it would feel on my skin. How it would taste on my tongue. But”—his thumb stilled, pressing under my cheekbone—“the unveiling was ill-timed. Though it was everything I’d imagined—fierce and full-bodied—yours was not the power I’d wanted to ignite that evening.”
A sharp, plunging feeling.
Our world is on the precipice of an immense change.
And thanks to their ambassador’s violence that night, the Ansorans—the greatest power-players this side of the world—were exactly where Erik had wanted them: in his debt.
All along, he’d been trying to provokeKeil.
“You increased the Huntings to draw Ansoran attention,” I said thinly. “You lured them here.”
“And your outburst could have destroyed everything for us. In that moment, even your own exquisite fury couldn’t match mine.” He drew my head back slightly, baring my throat. Something glinted in my periphery. Then Erik lifted Keil’s dayglass shard intomy eyeline and said, “How fortunate, then, that Ambassador Arcus sacrificed himself for you.”
I shook so hard that my breaths kept catching over themselves. He’d seen the fire-sparking glance I’d shared with Keil. But this dayglass shard—the shard I’d forgotten under my mattress, which Keil hadentrustedto me—proved we’d shared more than glances.
Erik gave a cutting smile. “I recognized his script on that letter.” His thumb slunk under my jaw, across my throat. “I know he helped you assemble the final piece of your puzzle. What Iwantto know is this...” He halted over my throbbing pulse—reading me in its rhythm. His face darkened with a look both savage and razor-shrewd.
“Did you let that Wielder brute touch you?” His voice rumbled low, his thumb juddering with my wild, treacherous heartbeat. “Did he put his hands on what is mine?”
Mine.
That word fractured my terror. I wrenched back, driving my knees between us until he either had to rip my hair out or release me. Mercifully, he chose the latter.
I skidded to the back wall, skirts ballooning.
“I know why you do it,” I panted. “Why you poison us and chain us. Why you keep us long enough to torment and degrade. It’s becauseyou fear us.”
Erik’s lips twitched. “Do I look like I fear you?”
“You look like a monster. And all monsters are afraid of something.”
The corner of his mouth fell, and I braced for him to grab me again. To heave my head back all the way this time and smash it against the wall.
Instead, he pocketed the dayglass and took out something far worse: a large, oval xerylite rimmed with sparkling diamonds and centered on a silver band.
The engagement ring.
“A king shouldn’t fall to one knee,” he said quietly. “But I would have for you. There would’ve been music and merriment. I’d have danced with you all night, then carried you upstairs in my arms.” He shook his head sadly. “The time for splendor has passed... but the sentiment remains.”
He set the ring on the floor—reminding me of Junius, relinquishing his jewelry in submission. And I realized why my plan to corner my attacker wouldn’t have worked.
Because Erik had never wanted my head. He’d only ever wanted my hand.
