Page 56 of The Rook

When, finally, she descended the stairs and found her room, she barely suppressed a sigh of relief. She was tired and sore and irritated; all she wanted to do was sleep. She pushed open the door and squeaked. A couple lay intertwined with one another on the bed. She promptly shut the door again. Her face flushed scarlet. That was unexpected.

“You’ve been assigned a new room,” Mal said from behind her, almost lazily. “If you’d acknowledged my presence, I’d have warned you about the room swap and saved you the embarrassment of seeing what you just saw. If you follow me, I can take you there.”

The last thing she wanted to do was follow him, but if it meant reaching a bed upon which she could collapse, and a fire that could warm her soul, then she’d do just about anything.

Wordlessly, she trailed after him and much to her chagrin, he took her backupthe stairs until they reached a set of handsomely carved, mahogany doors. With the turn of a gilded handle indented with amber, he let her inside.

She gaped in awe. It was one of the most beautiful rooms she had ever seen. A balcony took up much of one wall, protected from the bitter outside with a solid sheet of semi-opaque stone. Lights twinkled out of focus behind the stone, transforming it into something quite magical. The hearth to her left was almost as large as the balcony, a gargantuan fire burning merrily within it. But the flames weren’t orange; they were purple and blue and icy and blinding white. “What sort of witchery is this?” she demanded.

Mal rolled his eyes. “It’s nothing but a parlor trick. When you burn certain oils, they change the color of the flames.”

“Nyx?” she asked, eyeing the painted white columns of the room—as well as the sizeable four-poster bed—in the colors of the northern sky. Her attention moved back to the curious flames. Pyre’s sister was gifted when it came to concocting potions and elixirs

“You know us so well?” Mal asked. She didn’t answer. “It’s a nice room, isn’t it?”

“I’m not going to speak to you in this form,” she said through gritted teeth, for there was no way she was going to admit to being enamored with the room to such a despicable man. She threw a glare at him and noticed, in the process, that Mal was staring at her wrist.

Where the king of the dragons had kissed her.

“He marked you.Again,” he said, without inflection or emotion, though Tempest knew enough about Mal—Pyre—to tell that he was gravely unhappy.

Good. Let him be.

“Damien helped me,” she said, knowing it was nowhere near close to a good enough explanation. “Now shift or get out.”

With a clench of his jaw, Mal shifted, groaning as his other human form emerged before Tempest’s very eyes. It greatly unsettled her, seeing a man turn into another man entirely. It reminded her that she did not know which form was truly the Jester.

Do you even want to know? Does it matter?

“Are you happy now?” he bit out tersely.

She let out a short, humorless laugh. “Not in the least.”

His golden eyes dolefully scanned Tempest’s entire frame as she threw off her sodden, frozen cloak and shook out her bird-nest hair.

Eventually, he said, “Get some rest. You look like death.” He began to exit the room, then turned and added, “Try not to let anyone else mark you, if you can help it.”

Tempest threw a dagger at the door in response, but he’d closed it before it could reach him. It lodged in the wood with a thud. How many times would they go round after round?

“You cannot tell me what to do,” she muttered, wincing as she stripped off her clothes. “I can do what I like.”

But on the matter of men marking her astheirs,Tempest had to admit they were on the same page.

No more markings. She belonged to no one.

Yet.

TWENTY-FOUR

Tempest

“…Tempest. Hey, Tempest.Dog!”

Tempest barely ducked in time to avoid the wooden cup Brine threw at her head. She hadn’t even noticed the man sit down at the same table as her.

She grimaced and ran a hand down her face. “I’m sorry, Brine. I didn’t sleep well.”

“I can see that,” he muttered, taking another cup of hot tea from a servant as they passed them by. “Has anyone told you that you look like death?”

---