Page 148 of Autumn Queens & Shadows

She heard me but didn't stop nor acknowledge me.

I faded in front of her, but she sidestepped me, and I decided then I’d let it go long enough. Hooking my arm around her waist, I lifted her up and put her on top of a table, pushing the decorative vase to the ground and letting it splinter to pieces. I pinched her chin and turned her face to me even though she refused to meet my eyes. She was too calm, meaning she was about to lock herself away from me, so I went straight to the point. “I’ve never touched her, never wanted to and never will. Look at me.” She didn’t. “When I left ten years ago, we had to work together and at some point she began to show interest in me, but I had told her everything about you. I’ve never hid it from anyone, Thora. You can ask her. You can ask the whole of Heyes. I swear I’ve spoken your name to every rock and tree.” I rested my brow on hers. “I swear the wind still speaks your name for how much I’ve tortured it by calling your name.”

Her eyes glassed over, like morning dew on croton leaves. “You just hid it from me.”

“Frankly, I’m not a fan of that tone.”

She pulled back. “You’re unbearable.”

“Drop the attitude and just hit me.”

“You’d probably like that.”

“Are you shaming my preferences?”

“No. I just don’t want to please you at this moment as much as I want to rip your head clean off your shoulders.”

“You’re getting better at flirting with me, little bird.”

She rolled her eyes. “Ugh.”

“I know a few other sounds I could pull out of you,” I said, sucking her lower lip in my mouth. “They are usually followed by some hair pulling, nail digging, skin scratching. And end with you coming all over my cock. How about some of that?” I asked, peppering her mouth with kisses until she turned into putty in my hands. “Let me sweep you away, I’m sick and tired of all the men looking at you.”

“What did the Seraphim Queen want?”

“To know of my return to Heyes.”

“And what did you tell her?”

“That I will leave your side only if you want me to leave.” I’d tell her this over and over and over. I’d tell her this every day until she was convinced of my words.

“Is that what you really want?”

No. I never wanted to leave. Even when she would ask me to. “I’m at your mercy.”

“I want you to be free to choose. I don’t want you to be at anyone's mercy. Never again, Malik.”

I was no longer a free man. “I want to be at your mercy. I want to be yours.”

“You are mine.”

I needed her to tell me that again and again. In every language she knew. “Remember it before you get jealous next time,” I said, dropping my head on her shoulder. “We aren’t a secret anymore, why are we being so careful with this? I wanted to pull you in my arms all night, hold you all night, keep every prying and leering eye off you, I wanted to tattoo my name across your chest, mark you as mine in every way there is.”

“You’d want that?”

“I want everything.”

Someone sighed from the end of the corridor. “This is public space as far as I was aware,” Elias said, passing us on his way to the celebration hall.

“You’re seeing this?” she asked him.

“Unfortunately,” he boredly replied.

“See,” she whispered in my ear, kissing her way down my neck. “Not a secret anymore.”

“Uncle,” a tired little voice called, and we both pulled away from one another. Rain yawned again and again, unable to speak for a while. “I’m sorry, auntie, but I want to go to bed. Will you put me to bed?”

Thora jumped from the table and went to pick up our niece. “Want to sleep in my bed tonight?”