Page 91 of Skyshade
The restaurant was full, and Grim frowned at all the noise and chaos, but Isla couldn’t hear enough, couldn’t see enough. It was lively, the villagers dragging chairs to other tables, having conversations over groups of people, laughing, and smiling, as if they weren’t in the middle of the storm season. As if they lived each day to the fullest, anyway.
When she looked at Grim, he was already staring at her.
“What?”
“You...would be happy here,” he said slowly, studying her face for her reaction.
She hadn’t really thought about it. But...even as much as she hated the cold, this village was alive in a way she hadn’t seen before. The community had survived centuries of curses. It was clear that the same families had known each other through generations. It was beautiful.
Grim ordered charred meat with whipped potatoes and got something completely different delivered by the boisterous owner. Isla smiled behind her hand at the look on his face. Still, he ate it, and she ate off his plate when she decided his was far better than hers.
“Just take it,” he said gruffly, pushing his plate to her, and reaching over to take hers.
“It’s so much worse,” she said, watching his face as he took a bite. “It was a horrible trade.”
“It is,” Grim confirmed. Isla smiled, pushing his food back, but he stopped the plate with his hand. “I told you I would give you anything, remember? That includes my clearly superior mystery dish.”
He dutifully ate everything on his plate, and then the rest of hers when she was done. Afterward, he dragged her into an alley, and she moved first, pinning him against the wall and kissing him until he sighed into her mouth.
“As much as I enjoyed that, I had more innocent motives for bringing you here,” he said, sucking his bottom lip, as if to savor the taste of her. He motioned toward light peeking around the corner. “Chocolate,” he said. “It’s a chocolate shop that—”
She pulled him to her. “That is so incredibly thoughtful,” she said. “And I love chocolate in a way that is probably concerning. But I want something else right now.” She looked at him. “Do you understand?”
By the way he portaled them back to the castle—and what he did afterward—she knew he’d understood perfectly.
UNLEASHED
The winter palace seemed oddly removed from the rest of the world. Outside, nothing was heard but the faint calling of birds; and at night, nothing was seen but an endless sheet of stars.
As she stared out the wall of glass windows, she wondered how this place had survived centuries of storm seasons. She had seen the force of the tempests—and all they had destroyed—in just the last few months. She kept waiting for another one, but the sky here was still blue.
Grim said he wanted to show her something outside, and he motioned toward a set of clothes he had pulled from her wardrobe. She squinted at the pants that would disintegrate in the snow, socks that were meant for inside, and undergarments that weren’t at all suited for any type of exercise.
“What?” he asked as a smile played on her mouth.
“Nothing,” she said, pulling pants made of thick leather, a tight band and shirt to keep her chest warm and in place, and a long-sleeved shirt. “You know remarkably little about how women dress, for someone who’s been alive for half a millennium,” she said. He had likely asked an attendant to help him create her wardrobe.
Grim gave her a look. “Might I remind you, I was never meant to marry. I was never meant to have a woman in my quarters for more than a few hours.”
She smiled at him. It was true. She remembered the challenges of having the original ceremony. The surprise and outrage of the court.
Isla realized this room—the one that must have been his father’s centuries before—would never have had a woman living in it. Now her things were everywhere.
When she was dressed, Grim studied her, as if committing the pieces to memory, annoyed at having gotten it wrong before. She smiled as he led her out into the gardens.
They could have portaled anywhere, but they walked for miles, talking about everything from what was going on at the castle to how Lynx and Wraith were getting along.
“Your leopard is oddly protective of a creature that is several times his size,” he said.
“His name is Lynx,” she corrected, for the dozenth time.
“But he isn’t one,” Grim said, for also the dozenth time, exasperated. “You’re calling him by a different type of animal.”
“He likes it,” she said, glaring at him.
“Fine,” he said. “Lynx,” he frowned at the word as if it had insulted him, “is oddly protective of the aptly named Wraith.”
She rolled her eyes at him. “Wraith might be huge, but he’s still a child. Lynx is older.” She sighed. “I’m just relieved Lynx hasn’t held Wraith’s bonded against him.”
