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“You’re his sister,” Grayson said. “You’reyou. Fates, Mia—you will always be enough.” He pulled her closer. “No one else survived that night. Not even the grown men who had sailed all their lives. You were a little girl, and you lived. That’s a gift—a fates-blasted miracle. And that’s exactly how Desfan will see it.”
“How can you be sure?”
“Desfan has spent all these years thinking he lost you. Getting you back . . . Can you imagine what that means to him? He loves you. And he wouldn’t want you torturing yourself with this any longer.”
She didn’t know how to respond. But something deep inside her settled, and for that she was grateful.
There was a long moment of silence. Then she said softly, “After the storm passed and morning came, I’d drifted away from a lot of the wreckage. I still thought my mother and Tally might be alive. It’s what gave me the strength to keep holding on. And when the rescue ship came . . . I didn’t realize itwasn’ta rescue. The man who pulled me from the water . . . he was kind. I thought we were heading home. I thought everything was going to be all right.”
Instead, she’d been taken to Ryden. Sold to Henri. Imprisoned.
Grayson’s breathing thinned. “I’m sorry, Mia.”
Mia.It was the name she’d clung to during the beatings. The name she’d embraced when she couldn’t beMeerah anymore, but she couldn’t bear to lose herself completely. Mia was what her family had called her. It was her last tie to them, and she’d refused to sever it, even if she’d had to stop thinking about them all the time.
She hadn’t thought about that in years, but she couldn’t stop thinking of it now. Yes, she had been Meerah once, but she’d also been Mia—even then. Perhaps that meant a part of her was still Meerah, too. Maybe something of who she used to be had survived, even after all this time.
Maybe she wasn’t broken, but rather made whole by all the different pieces of herself.
Too many thoughts filled her mind, bringing too many feelings to process. She pulled back from Grayson, just enough so she could face him. There was just enough silver light from the window that she could see the furrow between his dark brows. She touched his cheek. “Thank you. You’re always exactly what I need. I want to be the same for you.”
He smiled very gently. “You are everything I need, Mia. Always.”
Her heart thrilled, but she let her face turn serious. “I’ve been pushing all of this—everything about my past—out of my mind for so long . . . I think that’s why the nightmare came. It’s because it won’t be pushed away any longer.”
He watched her almost cautiously. “That makes sense.”
She nodded. “It does. Because no matter how hard I tried to force it away—all the pain and loss and guilt—it never really left.” She exhaled slowly as she met his gaze. “Do you want to talk about Carter?”
Grayson stiffened. He drew back slightly, the back of his head bumping lightly against the wall. His scarred jaw worked. “What I did to Carter . . . that’s not even close to what happened with Tally.”
“I think the guilt can feel the same. Whether it’s right or not, I blame myself for Tally’s death.”
“But you were blameless. I actually killed my brother.”
“You were saving me.”
“I don’t regret that,” he said at once.
“Do you regret killing Carter?”
Grayson glanced away, his dark hair falling over his brow. “Yes.” Against her back, his hand fisted. “I don’t remember making the choice to kill him. If I’d been thinking clearly, maybe . . .”
Mia twisted toward him and pressed one palm against the unmarred side of his face, coaxing him to look at her. “The situations are different, but please hear me—shoving this aside, not feeling it . . . it will continue to tear you up, unless you lay it to rest.”
He scanned her face, his expression tight. “I don’t know how.”
Mia almost smiled, though it was pained. “Neither do I. But trust me, ignoring it for years isn’t the way.”
Grayson’s throat worked as he swallowed. “I crossed the line no one else in my family has ever crossed. Not even Peter or my parents.”
“That doesn’t make you worse than them.”
“That’s not how it feels.”
Mia’s thumb swept over the serious line of his unmarked jaw, which was rough with dark stubble. Grayson rarely shared his deepest thoughts, and even more rarely would he share his fears. Every time he allowed her in, she treasured that show of trust. Slowly, she leaned in and pressed her forehead to his. “I understand what it’s like to feel something, even if some part of you knows it’s not true. But you are so much better than you believe, Grayson.”
He said nothing for a long moment. Then his chin lifted, and one hand moved to cradle the back of her head as his mouth brushed hers. His lips were warm, firm, and comforting, but he ended the kiss too soon. “I don’t think I’m ready to talk about Carter.”
