Page 76 of Stolen Threadwitch Bride
Because I’d never have another chance.
I tapped his arm to get him to put me down. He frowned as he did so, bending to try and meet my eye, but I turned and grabbed the bracelet pincushion and tugged it over my hand. “I need to pin the sleeves and check the fit.”
That last part was a lie—the fit couldn’t have been more perfect.
“Right.” He straightened, but his gaze burned into me as I folded the cuffs to the right length and pinned them.
Every time I opened my mouth to say it, my tongue refused to work.
I couldn’t do it. Not with him watching me.
“You need to look ahead or it’ll hang unevenly.” I circled behind him.
Clutching my chest, I dragged in a long breath. My eyes stung as I stared at his back. “It’s over.”
His shoulders rose and fell. “Thank the stars above, it soon will be. You’ve almost finished this suit, and then I’ll—”
“I don’t mean the suit. Or Goren’s deceit. I mean…” Even though my heart was an empty pit, it somehow managed to pound, pressing on my ribcage. “I mean us. What we’ve been doing.”
He whirled, lips parted, eyebrows screwed together. “What?”
I backed out of arm’s reach, not because I feared him, but because I knew, if I could reach out and touch him, I would. And then I’d lose my nerve.
But the words were out there now. I’d done the hard part. I just had to get him to believe it.
“I don’t want to be your novelty plaything while you wait to marry some fae lady.”
He blinked, eyebrows shooting up. “What?” Head shaking, he took a step closer, but I kept my distance even as my hands ached to reach out. “You think…? No,no, Ari, that’s not—”
“Youstoleme, Lysander. I have no choice about being here.” Only half-true.
He hadn’t stolen me: he’d acted under a bargain he was bound to, whether he liked it or not.
But I’d used the accusation against him enough times and using it now made it easier to push him away. “Dress it up how you want, but that’s what happened. In this country’s law, you own me.”
Thatwastrue. All these weeks, the idea of ownership hadn’t gone away and had quietly festered inside me. “How can I be anything else? How can I be anything other than, and I quote, a ‘mere human’?” I lifted my chin as I threw his own words back at him, although all I wanted to do was crumple to the floor.
Shoulders sinking, he deflated. Even his expression and his gaze dropped. “I… I… Stars above, Ariadne, I’m sorry.” He scrubbed his face, a sudden weariness spelling itself out in the slack lines of his body. “I should never have given in to my feelings. Not while you were bound to me.”
His words twitched through me, pushing bile to the back of my throat.
He did regret it.
Of course he did. He’d meant this to be a brief fling, a little fun.Iwas the one who’d got the wrong idea and had fallen in love with him.
Because that was the bright feeling I had every time I saw him.Love.
And the empty pit in my chest?Thatwas where I’d ripped out my own heart so I could do this before he did.
“I’ll fix this.” He raked a hand through his hair, eyes darting over the floor as though it held the answer.
It couldn’t be fixed. But my words were all dried up.
My stupid tears weren’t, though. I thought I’d cried them all this afternoon, but fresh ones stung my eyes. I turned my back on him and tidied my perfectly tidy work table so he couldn’t see.
“Leave the suit on the side.” My voice came out raw like it had been torn from me. “It’ll be ready for you tomorrow.”
Then he’d be able to go to Goren and get the seed back. Below the terrible, dragging ache in my chest, my stomach tightened at the thought of him in Goren’s lair. But he was strong, he would win. The suit would keep him hidden, and he’d get his power back.
