Between Tides Thunder(127)
“But not you. Somehow, you managed not to lie once. My beautiful, clever, magnificent Mayah. And Skies above, I fell in love with you—while I was dragging you to marry my brother.”
His voice breaks, and my heart twists.
“But the Skies favored me for some reason I’ll never understand. I married you. And I knew you didn’t love me. Not yet. But I hoped one day you would. That I’d wake one morning and find you gazing at me with affection in your eyes. With longing. Because you wanted to, not out of a misplaced sense of duty or a need for survival. I hoped you’d fall in love with me.”
A beat of silence.
“And I thought maybe you had.” His thumb brushes the corner of my mouth. “You wanted me. You let me hold you like you craved me, too. You reached for me in the dark, when you were half-asleep because you needed me close.
“But then I returned from the border and found you with him…” The memory splinters his gravelly voice. “My world shattered, Mayah.”
He swallows hard, like he’s forcing jagged glass down his throat.
“I’d been wrong. So horribly, stupidly, hopelessly wrong. When you fell to your knees beside his body—Skies, the way you looked at him. The grief in your eyes. The rage. It gutted me.” He pauses, his breath shallow, eyes glistening. “In that moment, I was ready to annul our marriage and send you back home. You didn’t love me. And I—” His voice thins, fingers tight around my chin. “I had just murdered the man you did. That felt like punishment enough.”
His hand drops from my face.
“But then you turned on me. Attacked me with water.” He laughs, low and bitter. “And just like that, my world shattered again. Twice in the span of minutes.”
The laugh dies in his throat. His next words are soft, almost afraid.
“I thought my truthwielding didn’t work on you. That everything we’d shared—every kiss, every touch, every confession—had been a lie. How else could you have kept so much from me? I kept replaying every moment, searching for cracks. Trying to see how you’d fooled me so skiesdamned thoroughly.”
“That’s why you said you’d never trust me again,” I whisper.
He nods, pressing his forehead to mine. “All those months, not a single lie. Not one. And then just now…” His breath hitches. “When you said you hated me—it didn’t just prickle, Mayah. It felt like someone raked a blade down my spine.”
A broken sob tears free. Zev catches it with a deep kiss, pulling me harder against the solid wall of his chest.
“Tell me another lie, baby,” he whispers against my lips.
“I never want to see you again,” I breathe, raking my fingers through his soft hair. “I want you to leave. I—I don’t love you.”
Harsh tremors ripple through him. And then his mouth crashes into mine, hungry and heartbroken.
When he draws back, his voice is wrecked. “You were telling the truth,” he says hoarsely. “When you said you wanted me. When you said you’d miss me.” A broken chuckle. “When you said you love my broody scowl. The wormbark oil. Everything. You. Love. Me.”
I nod, sobbing freely now. He wipes my tears away with aching care. His thumb brushes my lower lip. His eyes darken, body rigid against mine.
“Every time I close my eyes, Mayah, I see you on your knees—beside him. My Mayah. My wife.”
“Are you still mad?” I breathe into the heated air between us.
“Yeah, baby. I’m still mad.” His fingers fist in my hair, yanking my head back. “But I’m going to get it all out now. Every last bit. And then we’ll never speak of it again.” Anger flashes in his eyes, but there’s also a heady heat swirling in his gray gaze. His fingers tighten in my hair almost to the point of pain. “I gave you all of me, Mayah. I loved—love—you. My life’s been split down the middle: before you and after you. Before you, I was merely existing. Going through the motions. Alone. A fucking shell. But after you?” He looses a rueful chuckle. “After you, there’s only you. Since our journey, it’s only ever been you. Every moment spent thinking about you, aching for you, loving you. And then … everything came crashing down around me. You were with him when you were mine.”
He takes a deep, shuddering breath. “But even then, you were still mine, weren’t you, baby? When you were convinced my kingdom was responsible for your mother’s death, when you were planning a skiesdamned coup under my nose, when you left Tundrayn in love with another man. The wormbark oil was for me.”
He phrases it like a question, and I nod quickly.
“And when I returned from the border, you were planning to tell me everything.”
“Yes,” I whisper, head still arched back in his punishing grip.
“And I would’ve helped you. I’d have helped you kill them all,” he admits, his voice low and dark. “Without a second thought. You didn’t fucking need him. Because I’ve always been yours. I have been since I met you. And you need to decide now. Because you’re either mine or you’re not. And if you choose to be mine, Mayah—” He wrenches my head back farther, and a soft whimper escapes my lips.
“I won’t be kind. I won’t be gentle. I’m going to ruin you, the way you ruined me. You will spend your nights, your mornings, any moment I can get my hands on you, begging for a mercy that will never come. You’re going to ache for me, Mayah. The way I’ve been aching for you since that first night you slapped me across the face.”