Page 132 of Ashborne Forged

Her anger when she came for me at the solitude.

Her heat when we discovered each other for the first time.

Her teary smile when I told her I loved her, and I meant it.

The impossible unity. The need. The fire. The love. The Grace.

My heart wept tears I couldn’t shed.

My chest constricted.

Memories and dreams collided until one couldn’t be separated from the other, only underlined with beauty and need and—

I sucked in a breath and shoved away from the piano as my mother’s hands came to rest on my shoulders. I leaped with such panic, I almost bowled her over, trying to flee. Luckily, she still had reflexes like a cat’s and leaped back, out of the way, as the bench toppled from the force with which the backs of my legs hit it. I tripped, stumbled on it, but righted myself.

I stared at her for a shocked breath, then started for the door.

“Don’t ever touch me without my permission again,” I croaked, keeping my head turned away. I couldn’t let her see my eyes.

“Vane, come back! It was beautiful. I just wanted to—”

“I’m going to bed.”

I’d reached the door and opened it, about to step through, when she cleared her throat. “I received the wedding invitation today.”

I stopped dead.

No. No, no, fucking no. Not now. Not when I was still aching— “What. Wedding?” I asked hoarsely.

“Your lover’s, of course. I assume she inspired that gorgeous composition?”

Slowly, taking hold of myself with every fingernail of control, I turned to face her once more. “What wedding?”

Mother frowned. “Lord Breckon and Lady—”

“We are stopping that wedding,” I spat, struggling not to spring across the room and close my hands on her throat.

“We will stop that wedding,” she corrected, smiling.

Frantic, desperate, maniacal fear coursed through me. I folded my arms to hug myself and leaned against the doorframe as if I was merely irritated. But my bones hummed. And my guts twisted tight.

“Tell me,” I muttered.

Mother smiled and lifted her skirts as she stepped past the piano bench, eyeing it like it was a sleeping creature that might wake and snap teeth at her.

“We need to catch Breckon unawares,” she said as she glided closer. “And the best way to do that is for him to believe I’m merely attending as I usually would. So his guard isn’t up.”

“What the fuck does it matter if his guard is up? He reports to you! You tell him—”

“He’s Fyrehold. Not one of mine. But involved with mine,” she said flatly.

“What difference does it make?”

She tsked and rolled her eyes, but when I glared a warning, she stopped walking, just out of reach.

“That was always the problem with you and your father,” she sighed. “So insistent that the world must bend to your will, rather than sitting patiently, influencing until it bends willingly. Though, I suppose you men do learn early that the world most often gives in.”

I was furious, and still trembling. “The closer we get to a wedding, the more likely she will be discovered, and harmed—and the baby lost!”