She stiffened. “No, I’ll look to Eris for that.”
He went still. “Say that again.”
She made her face cold, the only shield she had against him. “Rhys says Eris wants me as his bride. He’ll do anything we want in exchange for my hand.”
The Siphons atop Cassian’s hands flickered. “You aren’t considering saying yes.”
She said nothing. Let him believe the worst.
He snarled. “I see. I get a little too close and you shove me away again. Back to where it’s safe. Better to marry a viper like Eris than be with me.”
“I am not with you,” she snapped. “I am fucking you.”
“The only thing fit for a bastard-born brute, right?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You don’t need to. You’ve said it a thousand times before.”
“Then why did you bother to cut in at the ball?”
“Because I was fucking jealous!” he roared, wings splaying. “You looked like a queen, and it was painfully obvious that you should be with a princeling like Eris and not a low-born nothing like me! Because I couldn’t stand the sight of it, right down to my gods-damned bones! But go ahead, Nesta. Go ahead and fucking marry him and good fucking luck to you!”
“Eris is the brute,” she shot back. “He is a brute and a piece of shit. And I would marry him, because I am just like him!”
The words echoed through the room.
His pained face gutted her. “I deserve Eris.” Her voice cracked.
Cassian panted, his eyes still lit with fury—and now with shock.
Nesta said hoarsely, “You are good, Cassian. And you are brave, and brilliant, and kind. I could kill anyone who has ever made you feel less than that—less than what you are. And I know I’m a part of that group, and I hate it.” Her eyes burned, but she fought past it. “You are everything I have never been, and will never be good enough for. Your friends know it, and I have carried it around with me all this time—that I do not deserve you.”
The fury slid from his face.
Nesta didn’t stop the tears that flowed, or the words that tumbled out. “I didn’t deserve you before the war, or afterward, and I certainly don’t now.” She let out a low, broken laugh. “Why do you think I shoved you away? Why do you think I wouldn’t speak to you?” She put a hand on her aching chest. “After my father died, after I failed in so many ways—denying myself of you …” She sobbed. “It was my punishment. Don’t you understand that?” She could barely see him through her tears. “From the moment I met you, I wanted you more than reason. From the moment I saw you in my house, you were all I could think about. And it terrified me. No one had ever held such power over me. And I am still terrified that if I let myself have you … it will be taken away. Someone will take it away, and if you’re dead …” She buried her face in her hands. “It doesn’t matter,” she whispered. “I do not deserve you, and I never, ever will.”
Utter silence filled the room. Such silence that she wondered if he’d left, and lowered her hands to see if he was there.
Cassian stood before her. Tears streaming down his beautiful, perfect face.
She didn’t balk from it, letting him see her like this: her most raw, most base self. He’d always seen all of her, anyway.
He opened his mouth and tried to speak. Had to swallow and try again.
Nesta saw all the words in his eyes, though. The same ones she knew lay in her own.
So he stopped trying to speak, and closed the distance between them. Slid a hand into her hair, the other going around her waist and tugging her against him. He said nothing as he dipped his head, mouth brushing the tears sliding along one of her cheeks. Then the other.
She closed her eyes, letting herself savor his lips on her over-hot skin, the way his breath caressed her cheek. Each gentle kiss echoed those words she’d seen in his eyes.
Cassian pulled back, and remained that way long enough that she opened her eyes again to find his face inches from her own. “You’re not going to marry Eris,” he said roughly.
“No,” she breathed.
His eyes blazed. “There will be no one else. For either of us.”
“Yes,” she whispered.
“Ever,” he promised.
Nesta laid a hand on his muscled chest, letting the thunderous beating of the heart beneath echo into her palm. Let it travel down her arm, into her own chest, her own heart. “Ever,” she swore.