Page 37

“I’m…I’m not certain I understood you correctly.” Each word was rough over my tongue.

Roark’s eyes burned like a trapped flame. To seal a sjeleven bond would make you my wife, Lyra.

All gods. I blinked, once, twice. How many knuckles I cracked, I wasn’t certain.

Roark’s wife.

My hunter. My protector. My lover. My liar.

Could he also be my husband?

My head spun. “I…I need a moment.”

A bit of my heart cracked at the flicker of hurt on his face, there and gone. Soon enough, Roark was the unflappable, unbreakable Sentry again. He dipped his chin, and instead of sending me away, he stepped through another door at the back of the bedchamber.

Alone, I collapsed, knees against the edge of the bed. I slid to the woven rug, my face buried in my palms. What in the two hells was I supposed to do? It felt as though with every step I took my life was at risk, every delay returning to Stonegate meant Kael suffered, and every thought always returned to Roark.

Be it as my villain or my savior, my steps continually entwined with his.

From the first sight of the fierce Sentry, the man had burrowed under my skin, a shadowed tattoo on my bones. I let my brow drop to the tops of my knees, desperate to slow my pulse.

Memories of simple moments with the man, before I ever would’ve dreamed the truth, fluttered through my mind. On the longship that took us from Skalfirth to Stonegate, he’d demanded my compliance for my safety. He’d been an enemy, but also a strange sort of ballast in the chaos.

And the fara wolf in the Phantom Forest sent to tear out my throat, he’d stopped it. The beginning of his betrayal toward his own clan and his first step of loyalty toward me.

I looked around the room, locked in a childish past long gone. I could almost imagine a small, playful Roark practicing how to hold a knife, likely attempting to imitate his elder brother.

My chin trembled.

For what he had suffered, all because that boyish heart saw me as more than forbidden craft, it would’ve been understandable if he’d slit my throat and been done with me.

Instead, the Sentry of Stonegate, the Death Bringer, kept me upright when fears overtook me; he reunited broken folk when he’d arranged for Hilda’s and Edvin’s families to join them in the royal keep; he wounded his own soul to defend me.

I sniffed and used the heel of my hand to wipe away tears from the corners of my eyes.

Roark had loved me.

In the truest sense.

Kael loved me, no doubt. We were a family who found each other. We’d yearned for such a connection, clung to it, become a brother and sister in every way save for blood. But Roark loved me despite his instincts, despite the cruelest craft demanding he end me, despite his own desires and loyalties. He had loved me to his own detriment.

And he never stopped.

A pitiful sob broke from my chest, not from pain, but from a twisted sort of delight. My mouth split into a watery smile the tighter I hugged my knees against my body.

Roark chose me over Thane, his own found brother. From the moment the Dark Watch surrounded our makeshift camp, their prince had never backed down, even destroyed one of them, all to keep me breathing.

Roark was no hero, not for me. He was the darkest, most beautiful sort of villain whose sharper edges stirred my soul.

My grin widened. Skul Drek always told me I brightened the night, but with Roark, his darkness was shelter against a blazing sun.

I wiped my eyes once more before rising. My fingers trembled when I clasped the latch on the door.

True enough, Roark had kept secrets, he’d lied, and he’d killed.

But the more I thought on it, the more it all paled beside everything he had done to prove there was no line he would not cross for me. How could I turn away from such a vicious, unbending devotion?

I could not deny it—I wanted Roark Ashwood.