Page 167 of Beautiful Prey

“You have no idea.” Seren’s voice drops, even though I’m standing right there. “That shy little thing calls me sir when I’ve got him on his knees and thanks me after. Prettiest manners in the Reach.”

Heat goes straight up the back of my neck and I find something on the far wall to look at.

Ash laughs, watching Seren watch his prince. “Yeah. I suppose it did.”

Someone calls that they’re ready for us, Ferro by the sound of it, herding everyone towards the second gallery where the chairs are set.

There’s no registrar today. We already did all of that. Today is just ours, on Calder ground, in front of the people who watched Onyx and me grow up. People who fed us when there wasn’t enough, kept an eye on us when nobody else did, let us become part of their lives because that’s what people here do. And every single one of them came.

Mrs. Varga is in the second row. Widow Okafor has managed to get a seat near the front. Onyx is beside Ryven, Seren and Aleron at the back, and everywhere I look there’s another face I’ve known for years looking back at me.

Outside, the orchard moves in the wind, young branches bending beyond the windows as Ash takes both my hands. “Go on then, stormbird. You wanted witnesses. You wanted romance. It’s all here now, all for you.”

That takes my breath away. I meet his eyes. “Most of you have known me since I was small. You watched Onyx and me grow up. You taught us things our parents couldn’t and looked after us in a hundred ways you probably don’t even remember anymore.”

My eyes find Widow Okafor, and her mouth is already trembling. “You used to leave food outside our door and pretend you’d forgotten it. I knew better. I just never said thank you, so... thank you.”

I look back at Ash, at this impossible man standing here with my hands in his like there was never anywhere else he intended to be. “And then he arrived. Rude. Arrogant. He took over everything without asking because apparently he couldn’t think of any other way to stand between me and the world.”

Ash gives a solemn little nod, as if I’ve just paid him a compliment.

A few people chuckle. “Shut up. I’m doing my vows. Somewhere along the way, I stopped carrying everything on my own because every time I looked up, you were already there. You gave my brother a future. You gave Calder one. You gave me a home before I knew I was looking for one. So if I get to stand here today, with all these people around us, it’s because you loved me first.”

Something shifts through the room. Mrs. Varga reaches for Widow Okafor’s hand, Onyx presses his lips together, and suddenly it feels like every person here understands the same thing I do: Ash came into my life taking and taking and somehow left me with more than I’d ever had.

Tightening my fingers around his, I rub my thumbs over his knuckles. “You never asked me to be smaller. You knew what I’d done to survive and never looked at me differently for it. I lied to your face on the first day and you buried it. You saved my brother and never once made me owe you for it.”

I take a breath. “So this is me choosing you. Not paperwork. Here, on my planet, in front of the people who watched me grow up, with my brother beside me. I’m yours, Asher Clement. I’d have been yours in the pines if you’d asked me.”

Then it’s his turn.

He opens his mouth, but nothing comes out.

He tries again, letting out an annoyed huff when Ryven snorts. “Take your time, dude. We have all the time in the world.”

“Shut up, Ryven.” He glares at him before clearing his throat. “I’ve had one thing that nobody could take from me.” He lets go of one of my hands and reaches into his jacket, and what he puts in my palm is a cheap resin cast of a green Calder, the paint uneven, one corner chipped away. “Small enough to keep in a pocket. I’d have died before I told anybody I had it.”

I stare at it. “That’s mine. That was on my shelf. In the flat.”

“It was.”

“I bought that on a school trip. I was nine.” My throat closes around the rest. “You took it?”

“I did.” He doesn’t look away. “The day before I put your brother on a ship, I let myself into your home and went through everything in it. That was the only thing in there that belonged to you and nobody else, so I put it in my pocket and I’ve carried it every day since.”

My eyes burn. “Ash.”

“I know what that makes me. I’m going to say the rest anyway.”

“You don’t have to.”

“I do, actually. There are two hundred people downstairs eating my food.”

A laugh moves through the room, and some of the tension leaves his shoulders. “I’m not a good man. You all know what my family is. It wasn’t a kind place to come from, and I’m not going to stand here and pretend love redeemed me. It didn’t. I’m exactly what I was. The only thing that’s changed is what I’m pointing it at. He knows that. He’s seen it. He’s been under it, had it turned on people for him, and watched me do things he’ll never repeat to anybody in this room.”

Tightening his hands around mine, he draws me a fraction closer. “And he stayed. So here’s my vow. Everything I have is yours. You’ve read the papers. Half of it’s already in your name. But that’s just money. There is nothing on any world I wouldn’t do for you. Nothing I wouldn’t burn. No name I wouldn’t tear apart. And you’re the only person alive who could tell me not to, and I’d listen.”

Nobody moves, every face in the room turned towards him as his hands tighten around mine. He looks only at me, holding me there in the silence. “I love you.” His voice barely carries.