I’ll show him.
Make him regret ever taking me on.
I wished I’d never met him. Wished he didn’t cause all this turmoil inside me. Wished I could go back to how it was, when David was enough, and I was satisfied with enough.
Anger curdled my stomach, climbing up my throat. My fingers clenched, my eyelids tight, as I held both arms straight before me over the pond.
“Lyra!”
I opened my eyes, gasping at the pillar of water rising before me,reaching twice my height. I staggered back, tripping over myself. The rock dug into my calves as I hit the ground.
The pillar wavered, collapsing slowly at first, and then all at once. Water surged toward us.
Thomas repeated my name, but my body was frozen in shock. Water gushed over the edge of the pond, forming a wave that would knock me over.
I was pulled into his arms just as the water hit, burning as it flooded my nostrils and tore at my legs. Thomas’s grip held me steady as the tide surged around us. It lapped at our waists and splashed our faces.
When the water finally receded, I coughed into his shirt.
I paused.
Hisdampshirt.
It clung to his skin, letting through the warmth I’d yearned for so long to feel.
My fingers clenched around the soaked fabric.
“Are you alright?”
His chest was heaving beneath my hand, his face dripping water onto my shoulder. My pulse pounded in my ears.
This can’t be happening.
“Y-yes.”
“I can’t believe you did it.” Rather than release me, his arms tightened around my waist. The muscles he’d earned from years of basic weapon training were more evident than ever.
My tongue felt thick in my mouth. “I-I did.”
The sound of his heartbeat softened to an even rhythm as my ear pressed against his chest. Water rolled down my nose, my calves, my neck, sending tingles up every trail left behind in the cool night air.
I sighed into him.
He loosened his grip and pulled away.
My body ached in the empty gap left behind, shivering in the cold. His dark eyes were aflame as they wandered down my silhouette. My thin nightgown clung to my skin. I sat up and crossed my arms in front of me.
He stared for a long moment before shaking his head. He moved to grab his coat from the rocks. “Here,” he said, holding it out to me while averting his gaze toward the pond. I scurried forward to take it. “It’s soaked, but it’s better than nothing.”
I nodded, daring glances at his figure, at his defined arms and calves. “Thanks.” Despite the freezing fabric, my insides warmed the moment I wrapped Thom’s coat around myself.
His eyes drifted down to my engagement ribbon, which hung limp but clung tight. He reached forward, playing with an end of it. I held my breath.
“They make these very well.” He twisted it to examine the knot on the underside of my wrist. “I can’t believe it survived the watery assault.”
He looked at me once more, something more complex than amusement lingering in his features.
It looked like unkempt wildness, like the eyes of unbridled horses racing across open fields.
