Page 147 of Thorns & Fire
Shaking her head, she asked, ‘Do you think that’s why Cal’s got a laughing fox on his arse?He liked the design?’
Torj raised a brow.‘I don’tlovethat you’ve seen Callahan’s naked backside...’
Wren simply grinned.
‘But no,’ Torj laughed.‘I can attest to the fact that Cal was seeing double at that point, and Kipp gave the artist an extra piece of silver to copy the fox emblem from his kerchief.’
Wren muffled her snort with Torj’s pillow.
‘There’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you,’ he said.
‘Oh?’
‘What happened to Perseus Graymoor?’Torj pulled the pillow away.‘You can tell me now.You poisoned him, right?’
‘No.I told you – it wasn’t me.’Wren couldn’t help the note of amusement in her voice.‘I was with my possessive husband the entire time.’
Torj chuckled.‘Then who did it?Who killed him?’
‘Someone with excellent instincts,’ Wren replied.‘I suppose it’ll remain a mystery.’
As they lay there together, she pretended this was her new reality, that every morning could start just as they were now.But as the very first rays of dawn caught her eye, she remembered Thea’s note on the desk.
She sighed, tracing the hard line of Torj’s jaw with her fingertips.‘Do you think we wasted all those years?’she asked.
‘Wasted?’Torj cupped her face in his hands.‘I think it happened exactly the way it needed to, Embers.I don’t regret a moment of it.Not if we stand here together at the end of it all.’
‘You’d do it all again?’she pressed.
‘A hundred times over if it meant you were mine.’
She rested her brow against his.‘Then there’s something I have to tell you,’ she said.
He kissed her gently, pulling back to peer into her eyes.‘Embers, I already know.’
She stared at him, wondering how that was possible when she had decided for certain only moments ago herself.
‘I know you,’ he said.‘Sometimes I think I know you better than I know myself.I know there’s something you have to do.I just hope you knowmewell enough by now to understand that I’m with you no matter what.With you ’til the very end.’
She nodded.The time for savouring one another was coming to a close.The outside world was calling.
‘What did the note say?’he asked, propping himself up on his elbows.
Wren looked up, not managing to hide her surprise.
‘You think I didn’t see you hide that scrap of parchment beneath the tray?’he said with a smile.
And that only made it harder.
‘Whatever it is, we’ll face it together...’he murmured, brushing the hair from her face.
Wren gathered herself and nodded again.‘It was a message from Thea.There is to be a meeting in an hour.The People’s Vanguard has marched on Delmira.And Silas the Kingsbane has laid claim to the throne.’
CHAPTER 61
Wren
‘Beware the fury of a patient Delmirian’
