Page 46 of Embers of Ruin

If Thorin thinks he has a right to be upset, then I have every right to be furious.

“Don't,” I say quietly to Onyx, pleading with my eyes, hoping they convey what I mean. “Not because of me.”

Onyx glances at me once and gives a simple nod—his way of asking if I’m alright. I give the smallest shake of my head letting him know that I’ll be alright. Whatever this is, I don't think it gets better with him in the room. He stands and crosses the room without a sound, pausing only a breath at the threshold to look back at Thorin.

“She is not one of your experiments,” Onyx says quietly. His voice never rises, but something in it changes—an edge I've never heard before. “Remember that.”

Thorin doesn't answer him. He doesn't even look at his way. His eyes stay on me the entire time, and it's that—the refusal to so much as glance at the man who just walked out—that tells me exactly how much control he's spending to keep himself still.

Around him, his shadows rage. Then the door clicks shut, and it's just the two of us staring at each other. My face looks apologetic but not at the same time, and his looks—devoid of emotion.

Thorin doesn't move for a long moment. When he finally does, it's toward the window, not toward me, and I watch his jaw work like he's chewing down words he doesn't trust himself to say out loud yet.

“We didn’t have lessons today,” I say, because someone has to say something, and apparently it's going to be me, filling silence the way I always do when I'm too afraid to sit in it. “I was told⁠—”

“I am aware of what you were told.” He isn't looking at me. “I felt you, and I came to see it for myself.”

His words crash over me like ice cold water.

“See what? See Onyx being a decent person to me, unlike some⁠—”

“Don't.” The word cracks through the room and this time he does turn, and whatever he's been holding back slips its leash just enough that I take an involuntary step back. “Do not stand here and call whatever that was decency. Spare me the details. There are things you don’t understand.”

He throws his head back for a moment, looking to a sky that I can’t see and when he looks back at me, those eyes flash pure silver.

My eyes widen in surprise, wondering what I’ve just unleashed within him. But he’s not the only one who has fire today, and I’m ready to use it.

“Then explain it to me, Thorin!” My own anger flares up to meet his, easier to hold onto than the fear underneath it. “You want me to understand something, you're going to have to actually tell me things instead of glaring at me like I've committed some unforgivable sin by letting a man who's been kind to me kiss me.”

“Do you always let men who are kind to you kiss you like that, Lyra? Goddess divine, to watch you pour your soul into another man, into my—” He stops himself from whatever he was going to say but I don’t let him finish, because now it’s MY turn to rage.

“I’M TRAPPED HERE! You keep me locked in this fucking room, with your rules that I can’t leave or roam, so tell me, Thorin. What would you have me do?! Why am I here? Let’s start with that one. Why are you hunting everyone on this fucking continent and stealing their magic? That’s what you’re doing, isn’t it? Stealing their magic, killing them, and using it to fuel this grand fucking palace! Magic is EVERYWHERE here! Why do you want MINE?!”

I throw my arms up, refusing to let him see how badly my hands want to shake. “EVERY DAY, THORIN! Every fucking day of you draining me dry in that garden and telling me nothing. And the first person who treats me like I’m more than a tool or shows interest in me, you storm in here like I’ve betrayed you somehow?! We are nothing to each other! You've made that abundantly clear that I am NOTHING to you but a resource. Perhaps a means to an end. And you won’t even tell me to what end! Onyx has always protected me, and been kind to me!”

“Kind?” His eyes darken, flashing pure silver as he spits the word like it’s acid on his tongue. “A man is kind to you, and the first thing you think to do is fuck him?”

What did he just say to me?

“Thorin! I haven’t⁠—”

He doesn't let me finish. "You are MINE, Lyra." The words start low, but I watch the muscle in his jaw tick hard with every syllable, like he's biting each one down before he lets it out. His eyes are blazing silver, swirling as he leashes whatever is threatening to come to the surface.

“MINE. You belong to me. You are in my palace, under my protection, and I walk in to find you curled up in the lap of the Captain of my Shadow Guard, OF ALL MEN⁠—”

His voice breaks loose on the last word, sending shockwaves through the room until even the large window vibrates. I flinch, and beneath my skin my magic answers before I tell it to, rising hot and ready to defend me if it needs to.

“I told you,” my voice cracks but I don’t back down, not one inch. “I told you I would never be yours. I belong to no one.”

His shadows tighten their slow circle around me.

“Tell that to your body.” He's closer now, close enough that the cold rolling off him presses against my skin. His face is so close to mine that I feel his breath—smell the familiar sweet scent of mint, as he stares at me.

“Tell your heart that—the way it tries to beat its way out of your chest every time I'm close enough to touch you. You think I can't hear it? I hear it, Lyra! I see the way your breath catches, the way your lips part the second you look at me. You fight it—gods, you fight it beautifully—but there is no fighting this. There is no fighting me.”

His hand lifts like he means to touch my jaw, and stops an inch short, fingers curling into nothing. His shadows don't share his restraint. They slip around my ankles before climbing my legs slowly. They circle my waist, glide over my arms, and brush feather-light across my cheek with a familiarity that steals my breath. My magic surges to meet them and heat blooms beneath my skin so suddenly I nearly gasp. Silver-gold light flickers beneath my fingertips before racing toward every place his shadows touch, as though desperate to greet them.

NO.