Page 75 of Stolen Threadwitch Bride
As long as I don’t touch it, I’m safe. Just like I should never have touched Lysander. What I felt for him was dangerous, and here I was about to be destroyed by it when he got his power back.
I needed to finish his outfit, get my True Name, and return to Briarbridge.
Even if the people there were horrible, nothing they did could hurt me as much as seeing Lysander marry someone else.
That would be a wound beyond bearing.
My Night
When Lysander arrived in the workshop that evening, the suit was ready save for the hems, and I’d started work on another offering for the Lady of the Lake.
“Too busy for dinner?” He grinned as he approached. The shadow of his dimple made the hole where my heart had been ache. “I missed you.”
I clutched the folded suit to my chest. Maybe I could stay… maybe I could…
Then he was in arm’s reach, and I brandished the suit like a shield. “You need to try this on.” I shoved it at him and waved towards the dressing screen.
He didn’t bother with it, undressing right before me.
Throat tight, I turned away and tidied. I tidied like my life depended on it. Loose threads in the bin. Needles straightened in their book. Thread snips back in the velvet-lined box with the other scissors and shears.
I’d unclamped the sewing bird earlier, unable to stand looking at it, but it had left a tiny indentation on the table’s edge.
And, of course, my traitorous fingers slid to it.
That little dent against my flesh. It felt more like a brand, one that marked me as the idiot who’d dared to think I could be anything more than a moth drawn to his dark flame.
“Ariadne,” he breathed. “My word.”
When I turned, that empty spot in my chest spasmed.
Because, good gods, he looked…
He had become the night shadows that poured off his heels when he walked.Hewas the deeper shadow in the darkness. Beautiful and deadly.
The suit was the exact colour of the motes of pure black that he became when he shadowstepped. It moulded to his square shoulders and his broad chest. It tapered to his waist and down his long legs.
Despite the empty ache in my chest, I could admit it. I had outdone myself.
The tailoring was perfect. Each bound buttonhole, even and symmetrical. The magic flowing off him flooded my mouth with raspberry and rhubarb and, as always, starlight and crisp night air.
It wasn’t that I’d made his clothes. It was more that he now wore a substance so utterly made of self, he’d become what he was always meant to be.
This was a glimpse of him with his full power.
And it was glorious.
“My night.” The words fell from my lips though I hadn’t told any part of me to move. It was truth. For all that I could lie, I couldn’t have lied about that.
Here he was, night made flesh. And he would get his power back. No question.
That I could play this tiny part, it was almost enough to close the pit in my chest.
But not quite.
A slow smile revealed his canines again, and before I could stop him, his arms were around me. “Stars above, woman, you are…” He shook his head and twirled me around. “You’re incredible.”
I sank against his chest, letting myself have this moment before I did what I had to. Gods knew I couldn’t say it with the full force of him upon me. I couldn’t say anything. So I enjoyed the warmth, the hard lines of his body, the faint smokiness of his cologne that was only detectable at close quarters.
