Page 96 of Autumn Queens & Shadows

“You’re tired, Snow, we will talk another time.”

“Not at all. I want to know, too, Rora. I feel like I’m the only one who doesn’t know anything about you. I keep treading carefully. Why am I being so careful? I tried to think about it, but I couldn’t find an answer. I just knew I had to be careful.” She stepped closer to me. “Tell me, why do I have to be careful?”

The thick ball of yarn and thorns collected on my throat again and cut off my voice. My lips parted to speak but sounds and words couldn’t come out.

My sister reached me and pulled me to her, hugging me. “You used to do that even when you were little,” she said.

“You’d tell me the mockingbirds outside would steal my voice and put hay in my throat.”

“You never believed me, did you?”

I laughed. “No. I never did. But it made you happy to know that it did.”

She shook her head. “No, it made me happy because you would smile.”

I buried my face in her chest and broke down, sobbing.

Chapter twenty-three

Pink Orchids

Malik

She’d lied.

Yes, I’d used my magic to see it even though I prided myself to be pretty fucking empathetic without it.

Now she was upset with me.

Very fucking upset.

All while I was in an entire state of bliss all because of that lie. Damned painful bliss, too. Because she’d chosen an odd dress to wear at a meeting.

A meeting.

The prim and proper Thora Krigborn had found the tightest, lowest cut dress I’d ever seen on her. To wear to a meeting. And she was standing by the windows, half turned to the rest of the room, so I had a good view of all of it. Head to fucking toe.

Did I mention it was pink? Or that her hair was put up in a ponytail and tied up with the same coloured ribbon.

She looked like a god damned dream.

Like someone had cracked a heavenly door open and was letting us take a little peek behind it.

Worst was, not only had she shown me yesterday that I was the biggest fucking idiot out there, but apparently I was shitty at my job, too. An Empath like me should have been able to tell it was me she’d wanted. Maybe I just did not want to believe it. Maybe it had seemed too good to believe it.

Pushing to stand, I shed my jacket and threw it around her shoulders, catching her by surprise because she jumped a little. She smelled so damn delicious. “You look cold.”

Frowning, she threw the jacket back at me. “I don’t get cold.”

“Sweetheart, trust me, you’re very fucking cold,” I said, throwing it around her shoulders again, leaning in just to catch a bit more of her perfume.

“Why are you being so weird,” she hissed, glancing at her court who was pretending they weren’t listening in to what we were saying.

Stepping closer until my chest brushed hers, I murmured only for her to hear, “I am so close to bending you down that table and fucking you in front of them all. So close, Thora. Friendlily, of course. Very friendlily.”

She blinked a couple of times, and then her eyes widened, her pale cheeks starting to gain some colour. “Oh.”

“Yes. Oh.”