Page 161 of In Violent Waves

Lyra’s face was inches from his, but her eyes were miles and miles away. To her cruel home beneath the sea.

“My father.”

His magic halted, and the winds died.

Wilder sucked in a breath and felt his body vibrate.

“Why?” He reached towards her, stroking his hand from her cheek to her neck.

“Because of my magic.”

It gutted him. She had been abused and was now being manipulated over something that was out of her control—her magic.

He felt no better than the monster that raised her.

“I thought—” her voice cracked. “I thought if I were no longer intact, that when I went back, I wouldn’t be of value anymore. I would be free.”

Wilder squeezed his eyes shut. She was cursed, and not because of her magic, but because she was a female.

“It was part of your bargain with my father. You will be free. I will make sure of it.”

Lyra nodded. But her gaze was haunted as she stared up at him. “I don’t need your pity.”

It was his turn to argue, to shake his head, and to explain his feelings. But he couldn’t. He was living his own nightmare, watching her struggle through hers.

She slipped out from under his arms and disappeared down the street. Leaving him all alone to ponder what the hell had happened between them and the mistake that he had made.

Wilder woke with a throbbing headache. No amount of elixir could clear her face from his thoughts after last night, no matter how hard he had tried.

The pounding on his door did not cease.

“Come in,” he snapped, sitting up and gripping his head.

He was shocked when his mother waltzed into his room. Her gossamer lilac gown resembled a cloud with the number of pleats and puffs on the sleeves.

“Rough night?” she tutted, coming to sit at the end of his bed.

The jostling of the mattress matched the roiling of his stomach, and he turned an astounding shade of green.

“Why are you here, Mother?”

Queen Aine looked around his humble rooms with a keen eye, and he felt her scheming coming to a head. Whatever she said next would annoy him—he just knew it.

“I watched you closely all night,” she said, turning to look at him.

If he had been a youth still, his cheeks would have flushed with embarrassment at hearing those words, because there is no way she watched him all night, or she would have seen what he got up to at The Venus.

“And?” he drawled, pouring himself a glass of water from the pitcher on his bedside table.

“You will escort Lyra to the Mannereds.”

He stopped thinking, and the glass he was pouring overflowed.

“Gods,” he snarled, and set the pitcher down, annoyed at the mess.

“You leave immediately.”

Wilder glared at her.