I dragged this hideous fucking coat onto my shoulders. Folk follow leaders with the resolve to lead. It goes back to something my father said. ‘To claim true power, all you need is the will to do what others won’t.’” Mia dragged deep on her cigarillo, breathed gray into the air like flame. “So I’m not just going to kill the Lady of Blades. I’m going to become the Lady of Blades.”
“YOU HAVE A GREATER DESTINY THAN THAT, MIA.”
“So you keep saying. But I’ll hardly fulfill it if some prick slits my throat while I’m sleeping. If I kill Drusilla and the Ministry, there’s no Blade alive who’d challenge me for the role. And the Church won’t be hunting me if I get to dictate who they hunt. It’s like Ashlinn said. ‘Nothing’s kept by those who won’t fight for it.’ So I’m going to fight.”
“ASHLINN.”
The name was like a knife slicing the air. Left quivering point-first in the floorboards between them.
“You’re going to have to get used to her being around, Tric.”
“I CAN’T HELP BUT NOTICE YOU SENT HER AWAY. AND I’M STILL HERE.”
“Don’t read further into that than’s warranted. She and I are together now.”
He held out his arms to the room about them. “BUT YOU’RE NOT, ARE YOU?”
“You know what I mean.”
“NO,” he said. “I DON’T. YOU NEVER ANSWERED ME WHEN I ASKED IF YOU LOVE HER.”
“Because it’s not your business.”
She saw a flash of anger then, burning and terrible in those bottomless eyes of his. The muscles in his jaw tensed, those black hands that had once roamed her body curled tight into fists. She could sense the awful speed and strength the Mother had gifted him, etched in every hard line and beautiful curve of his body. But slowly, as he looked at her, the rage melted, the tension in his frame faded. He swallowed hard and turned to the fire. Both hands on the mantle, saltlocks draped about his face as he hung his head and stared at the flames.
“… HOW CAN YOU SAY THAT?”
She watched him watching the fire, listening to the crackling wood, the sea singing outside, the thump of her own heart, painful and aching against her ribs.
“DO YOU EVER THINK ABOUT US, MIA?” he asked.
“Of course I do.”
“I MEAN US. THOSE TIMES … US TOGETHER.”
Tension crackling between them, curling the edge of her lips. She could feel it thrumming in her fingertips. Pulsing beneath her skin. Desire. Her for him. Him for her. Nothing and no one between.
“Yes,” she admitted, her pulse running quicker.
“EVER WONDER WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN?”
“Weren’t you the one who told me I should let the past die?”
“WEREN’T YOU THE ONE WHO SAID SOMETIMES IT DOESN’T?”
“Aye,” she agreed. “Aye, sometimes you have to kill it.”
“LIKE SHE KILLED ME.”
Mia drew a deep breath. Pushed herself off the windowsill and walked slowly across the wolf furs scattered about the floor. She joined him near the hearth, hands clasped behind her back, watching the flames with wary eyes as they stretched toward her like grasping claws.
“SHE KILLED ME, MIA,” Tric said. “SHE TOOK AWAY EVERYTHING I WAS.”
“I know. And I’m sorry.”
“HOW COULD YOU BE WITH HER AFTER THAT?”
Mia looked into the flames. Her hackles were rising, her temper flaring—she didn’t enjoy being questioned about who she bedded or why. Those were her choices. More than any other she’d made, they belonged to her. But Tric had once shared her bed, too—the first to ever do so who’d actually meant something, truth told. And given the circumstances, she could see how asking for an explanation wasn’t the most outrageous request he could’ve made. At least he’d waited ’til they were alone.
“Ash reminds me of me,” Mia declared. “She wants something, she takes it. She doesn’t answer to anyone. She’s fierce and she’s unafraid and she’s fucking beautiful. And in a world like this, that’s all too rare.” Mia ran a hand through her hair and sighed. “I realize the egotism at play in that. Wanting to bed yourself. But it’s more than that, too. Ash stands up to me. She pushes me. She takes the world by the throat and she squeezes. But when we’re alone, she reminds me of everything that’s good, too. She’s gentle and she’s sweet and everything I’m not.”
Mia put her cigarillo to her lips and sighed.
“When we first … with each other, I mean … Ash and I were both running along razor blades. Any turn could’ve been our last. And I thought about my life