Page 45 of A Sweet Destruction

Annie eventually gave up her search, turning to her mother for help. “Wait, Mama, why do we have to thank Auntie Esme, again?”

Sophie’s smile turned a bit tense, and her eyes shot to Esme for a beat before responding to Annie, “We thank Esme because she always sends you and your brother really nice gifts. The backpacks were one of them.”

Annie’s eyes brightened, starting to bounce again with excitement. “Yes, yes! Like Adam’s archery stuff and my new shoes and Mama’s necklace and—”

“Exactly, sweetie,” Sophie said, subtly cutting her daughter off.

Too late. The damage was done.

Esme knew it, too. She was already rising to stand, her muscles bunched like an animal about to take off after being spotted by a predator.

“Oh, no you don’t,” I said under my breath, repeating the same words my sister had. For good measure, knowing that right now Esme was far more likely to head my sister’s warning than mind, I stepped closer in case she decided to bolt.

Sophie was watching us closely, and I knew by her expression she noted the change between us in seconds. The last time I’d seen her, on a rare trip back to Florus for mandated meetings in the capital, Esme was taking those suppressants and my head was still wedged up my ass.

“Why don’t we go sit down and catch up?” Sophie suggested, nodding with her chin to the long tables behind her. Normally, they were nothing but slabs of drab gray metal, but they’d been decorated with the Royal colors—purple and red—and adorned with more decadent food than the base had seen in years.

“SWEETS!” Adam and Annie screamed in unison, a trait that never failed to pull out a smile, and took off toward the table and a platter piled high with pastries.

Sophie took one last look at me and Esme, a silent warning in her eyes that we would be following her, then turned and went after her children.

“I really don’t want to talk about it,” Esme said as she followed my sister, her tone a little too neutral to be believed.

“Yeah, well I would like to,” I returned, nudging her with my shoulder to try and lighten the mood. Esme only tensed further.

Alright, no touching.

Well, I don’t like that one bit, the Bond grumbled, that rule clearly contrary to every one of its instincts.

If Esme doesn’t want me to, I won’t do it, I snapped back, which promptly shut the Bond up. Good, at least it understood boundaries when it came to her. In the short few minutes I’d been living with it, I had a feeling it did not have the same restraint when it came to me.

I took a step in the direction of my sister, then stopped short when I realized Esme was heading the other way. “If you don’t want me to grab you by the back of the neck like a cat, I would not recommend running away.” Esme took another step away without turning back, so I tried a different method. “Adam and Annie are clearly excited to see you.”

In a blink, Esme had whipped around and was heading towards Sophie and the twins, muttering under her breath, “That wasn’t playing fair.”

I was really over playing fair, but I figured she knew that well enough, so I decided to keep quiet.

Esme’s strides were long, even for her legs. Which I was certainly not looking at with any sort of admiration, wrapped in tight tactical pants as they were.

Unrelated, it took effort to turn my head towards the side to take another peek at Bellamy and Soren hosting an impromptu press conference.

Someone must have said something incredibly uniformed or offensive, because Soren’s jaw did that pulsing thing at the same time Bellamy’s back straightened. The corner of my mouth ticked up when I saw her hand twitch at her side when she realized how hard Soren’s jaw had gone. I’d caught her smoothing her hand over the bulging joint several times over the past weeks.

She should just do it. The press would—

Bellamy was five steps ahead, as expected. She let her hand drift up, casually passing over Soren’s jaw and erasing any degree of tension.

It was obvious how steady Bellamy made Soren. Something he desperately needed, something my best friend desperately needed.

God, what I could have done for Esme if I’d known about the Bond earlier. There was so much I could have made easier.

Shaking off the dark tendrils of that ugly regret, I turned back to my family, only to be punched straight in the gut by something worse.

Adam was crawling all over Esme like a child freely roaming a playground, and Annie was sitting next to her, knees tucked under her and eyes wide with admiration.

Sophie was saying something to her that was forcing a smile to her lips, clearly begrudgingly.

You aren’t making her happy, the Bond commented, making me want to strangle it almost as much as I wished I could strangle myself.