Page 137 of Vicious Is My Throne

And that scared me more than the wings growing out of his back.

“Zorander Vayle. As long as I’ve known you, you have never lounged about in bed for a single day. But you have to wake up. We need you.” I reached for the closest wing, curled my fingers back, then decided fuck it, I had to know what those gleaming feathers felt like.

“Still so soft.” His wings were warm, like Zor, always my personal heater on cold nights. “And your feathers are so beautiful. Like darkness itself covered with rainbows. They’re smooth like expensive velvet.”

Zor was still everything I loved—strong, capable, kind—his calloused hands curled slightly beneath his face while he slept.

But this close, his otherness was inescapable.

His coloring changed where the wings were joined at the top of his shoulders. A dusting of black faded to dark tan, the surface almost like leather, the texture pronounced but soft to the touch, the pattern mottled against the smoothness of his skin.

I dragged a single finger over that arch of bone again, wondering at the strength contained in the delicate bend, the feathers that seemed too fragile to withstand a single wingbeat.

“For the record, I don’t want to do this.” With a resigned sigh, I poked him in the stomach. “Wake up, Zor. You have to get moving because the blight is all around us and we’re in danger.”

Like the word unlocked some secret directive in Zorander’s head, his eyes sprang open. “Anaria?” His gaze looked clearer than since he’d arrived, none of the exhaustion or that dazed euphoria clouding those dark depths. “What time is it? How long did you let me sleep?” He stretched his arms up over his head with a groan.

Then tried to roll over.

“What…” Zor pawed at the sheets that weren’t sheets, but wings covered in black feathers, covering him from the nape of his neck to the bend of his knees. “What did you put on top of me? Get it off.” He twisted and clawed, trying to escape. Trying to understand.

A feather floated to the floor. Then another.

I caught him by the wrist. “Stop, you’re going to hurt yourself. Let me…”

“Why is this godsdamned blanket so heavy?” Zor grumbled, and for a second, I wished he was still asleep, looking all innocent instead of flailing around, tearing his brand-new wings apart. “Can you get these covers off me? I’m burning up.”

“No, I can’t pull them off you, and this room was far hotter ten hours ago.” I squeezed his wrist tighter. “Zorander. I need you to listen.” I sat on the edge of the bed, my hip pressed against his side, feathers brushing the bottom of my arm.

They fucking tickled, and I grinned despite the fucked-up circumstances.

But nothing about this was funny. Not even slightly amusing.

Terrifying was more like it.

“When you were caught in this last wave of magic, something happened to you.” I lowered his hand into my lap. Probably not the most comfortable position for him, but I couldn’t let him go. Whenever I got bad news, I liked to have contact with someone else while the world was melting down around me.

“The magic caused your body to change,” I explained, choosing changed instead of mutated, because that would just freak both of us out.

“Change how?” Zor asked carefully, his pulse racing against my fingers. “What day is it? How long have I been sleeping?” He peered at the window where dim rays of light tried to break through the blight-infested window.

“I dropped the ward two days ago; you’ve been out ever since. We were hoping to leave for the Wynter Palace in the morning, but we might remain here one more day,” I explained as succinctly as I could, because he’d appreciate the brevity, and I knew questions were ricocheting around in his head right now.

“The blight?” he asked tightly. “Are we safe from that?”

“Bexley walked me through erecting a ward. I’ve been reinforcing the shield twice a day. So far, nothing has gotten through. We’ve blockaded the cistern room off—again, with magic—and no one but Raz and Tristan have left the castle. But the blight is bad, Zor. It’s overtaking the castle.”

“This is the danger you spoke of?”

“No. Not exactly,” I hedged. “You’re going to have to brace yourself, Zor. Something has happened.”

Zorander froze with that strange, unnatural stillness all my males were capable of. The stillness that meant a storm was about to break.

I squeezed his wrist tighter, my fingers barely meeting. “When you took the brunt of the magic, something happened. The magic could have been a catalyst, or maybe because you’ve been exposed to all three waves—Bexley’s theory, by the way—but you’ve changed. There have been some changes.”

Yes, that was better.

“There have been some changes, and you might need to make some slight adjustments going forward.”

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