Page 7 of Autumn Queens & Shadows

That still made my heart ache just a little despite everything.

His head tilted to the side, and he studied me top to bottom, slowly and attentively, swirling his drink around. Something I was wearing clearly displeased him because his face did that thing when he was angry—it turned into sculpted threat and honey coloured anger.

“Have you come to offer me your condolences?” I finally managed to gather my voice to ask. “For losing my betrothed.”

His eyes dropped to my dress again. “Why for? You didn’t lose anything you didn’t want lost, little bird.”

My pulse chilled, the cold trying to keep me calm. “Have I become your enemy?”

The glass he held stopped at his lips for a moment before he set it down on a table entirely, abandoning it to come inside the room. “Why would you say that?”

“Why are you reading me? You once said that the only privacy you violate was that of your brother and your enemies. Have I become your enemy?”

Snow chuckled and Kilian glared at his brother who had his entire attention on me as if he was seeing me for the first ever time. The older Castemont shook his head and picked up his sleepy son from the sofa. “Come, my love, let’s put you both to sleep. These two can bicker all night if they wish.”

“Actually,” I said, standing to my feet. “You can put your brother to sleep too, Kilian. My appetite for banter has been exhausted.”

“Lucky for you,” Malik said, slipping further inside the room and invading what little space left that bore none of his presence—I'd made sure of it, made sure I’d burnt everything that reminded me of him. “I know how to rouse that urge.”

The door slammed shut after everyone made a hasty exit, closing us together inside the room. His shadows leaned against it, towering as he was towering over me. They were just as quiet as he was being. “Were you going to really marry that poor soul?”

So many things I wanted to say, so many things I wanted him to say to me, yet he was here to mock me just like that last day before he left.

“That poor soul cared for me, liked me, and treated me kindly,” I told him. “I would have not only married him, I would have made him my family, given him children and probably grown old with him.”

He slowly nodded and backed away towards the door to lean against it, the move making me feel trapped all of the sudden. “Then I perhaps should offer you my condolences. Losing such an enticing business deal must indeed hurt.”

“Why are you here?” After all this time? Why did he have to come back after all this time? Just when I’d gotten used to the fact that he was never coming back.

“Needed to make sure you weren’t sharing my secrets with anyone.”

He wasn’t even trying to lie properly. “All your secrets are safe. Erik died.”

“Are you saying you would have told him my secrets? Did he mean so much to you?”

“Yes,” I lied.

I had lied perfectly. It had been the one lie I’d perfected in front of the mirror until I’d convinced everyone into believing—even Erik. I’d almost fooled Kilian and Snow, too.

His mouth twitched into a ghost of a smirk, not even trying to fall for my lie like everyone else was—they all wanted to believe I would and could fall in love. “I see.”

“Get out, Malik. Actually, just leave again. And don’t come back this time.” That feeling of suffocation was wrapping like a noose around my neck, and I reached to undo the buttons at the back of my dress, needing it off my body so I could breathe.

He pushed from where he leaned and came to face me, a hand raising to my face, not touching but slowly ghosting over my skin and down my jaw. “Turn around.”

Reluctantly, I did only so I didn’t have to look at him any longer, gathering all my hair with a hand so he didn’t touch me where I didn’t want him to touch me.

His fingers were warm against my cold skin, and I’d never hated anything quite like I hated how it still hummed for him. “Did you love him?”

Sucking in a shaky breath, I said, “Yes.”

“You cared for him?”

The air in the room cooled. “Yes.”

“And you let him touch you?” he asked, his hand stopped pulling on the buttons and he drew a finger down my now exposed spine.

“I did,” I breathed.