Page 35 of Autumn Queens & Shadows

“No one touches you while we are married.”

For a second, I was almost stunned, but I remembered that he was perhaps the most knowledgeable politician I knew. Court and war were his bread and butter. “I can control my urges. Understandably, people mustn’t figure out this is a sham.”

“I will be sleeping where you sleep.”

What?

“Does that make you uncomfortable?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“What a shame.”

“What else?”

“Nothing else.”

That was it? Those were his…rules?

I grabbed the bottle when he was about to take it and leave, holding it away from him. “How long? How long since your last drink?” The winces and the shakes told me more than he’d ever will.

He licked his upper lip. “A few years.”

Like an arrow had struck me, my hand loosened and the bottle slipped from my grip, falling to the ground and splintering to little bits.

Malik suddenly hauled me up by my waist and put me to sit on the desk, lifting my long skirts to inspect my feet. “Fuck, Thora,” he hissed, sighing and rubbing a hand over his eyes when he didn’t find any glass shards on my skin. The moment he looked up at me, he froze, his face falling. “What’s wrong?”

“Did Snow or Kil force you to this arrangement?”

“No.”

“Someone else?”

His scowl deepened. “No one else.”

“Why did you drink?”

“Why were you so against it?”

I frowned. “What?”

“Why were you so against this agreement, Thora? Why would some idiot you don’t know be better suited for it than me? Why did you argue a whole afternoon against it?”

“I don’t need you to be my protector,” I gritted out.

“Then what do you need, sweetheart?”

“Nothing. I would never force you to do anything.”

“Force me? You think someone like me could be forced?”

This whole day was giving me whiplash. The whole entirety of it was suddenly making me question if I had imagined it all in my head. “Why are you doing this? Is this a game? I really don’t understand anymore.”

“A game? What game?” A frown grew deeper and deeper between his brows the more he looked at me and found none of the answers he was looking for. “What is it that you don’t understand about me wanting to be near you when you know damn well, Thora Krigborn, why I can’t fucking stay away.”

My voice was smaller than I wished it had been when I said, “You might have forgotten that night ten years ago, but I remember it well. Too well.”

In moments, that frown he wore morphed into something else—realisation. “What night?”