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“Come with, if you must,” he ground out, looking half over his shoulder at Helion.

Silence lingered, heavy with everything left unsaid. My heart pulled in two directions at once, yearning for the impossible comfort of both their embraces, if only for a moment, before the world demanded I choose.

Before it demanded I die to fix the wrongs of a life that I do not remember living.

A low, humourless chuckle drifted from behind us, followed by the measured thud of boots against the timber.

If I didn't know him as well as I did, I would have believed his chuckle. I would have mistaken it for amusement instead of the armour he had carefully forged around his heart.

“Not until she asks.”

Chapter Thirty-Six

Breaking Storm

Rythos

Home.

I had forgotten just how perfectly Lyra fit in my arms. Something I was not sure I would get to feel before I died suddenly felt like a tether I did not want to let go of.

Yet there she was, struggling against me with violence, and another male’s mating bond tattooed on her fucking hand.

My eyes kept trailing to the sun with a wave crashing around it etched into her skin. It was the same mark Maraveth had, and it made my insides twist with every step I took towards my quarters.

I released a long breath, forcing the anger to drop from my shoulders before I shouldered the door open, kicking it closed behind us.

Somewhere between the inevitability of my death and longing for her, I had come to the conclusion that it was better to have whatever love she had to offer than to go without it at all. Even if it was shared with the male who cursed me in the first place.

I unclenched my teeth, not realising I had clenched my jaw yet again.

“Your anger is wasted, love,” I told her as gently as I could, placing her onto my bed and kneeling in front of her.

But she lashed out, her open palm slapping against my cheek and snapping my head to the side.

The sting was a welcome heat against my cool skin. When I looked back at her, I was met with pure venom.

Fuck, she was beautiful.

Those cerulean-blue eyes crashed into mine, churning with the wrath of an ocean in a storm. But I did not miss the way they shimmered with tears she refused to let fall.

“I married him!” she snapped, trying to poke the open wound that was my heart.

Trying to anger me, a pointless endeavour.

Like fuck was I going to let her push me away.

When I remained silent, her hands curled into fists.

“I fucked him, Rythos,” she sneered, “and I liked it.”

I froze.

The image of them together flashed through my mind, skin to skin, Lyra’s eyes filling with heat as she watched herself get fucked by my maker.

His hands on my woman⁠—

My gaze fell to the mating mark on her left hand before lifting to the one on her right.