Page 35 of Queen of the Wicked
“Told me what?”
“That it was him,” Saddiq said. “The one that saved us from the werewolves in the Blackwood. The one who saved our lives.”
I turn sharply in Rowan’s direction. “What?”
Rowan froze, like he didn’t know how to approach this conversation–like he was worried I was still mad at him for the letter. I am…but if what Saddiq is saying is true...
He shifts, clearly uncomfortable.
“You never told me.”
A long silence stretched between the three of us, and I stood up, walking to Rowan slowly as if trying not to startle an animal. When I reach him, I place a kiss to his cheek and hug him, letting that embrace say all the things I didn’t know how.
“Thank you,” I whisper to him.
And finally, he hugs me back.
Thirty-One
Rowan
I feel her before I see her. Adelasia steps into the space between the trees, moonlight kissing her skin and catching in the strands of her dark hair. She’s free from her leather corset, her tunic thin and wrinkled from a restless sleep.
“I couldn’t sleep,” she murmurs as she steps closer to me.
Neither can I. Not when your scent lingers in the air. Not when my body is hollow and my blood stirs with hunger and lust for you.
Those are the things I want to say to her, but instead, I stand slowly, wings unfurling. “You shouldn’t be wandering. It’s dangerous.”
“I wanted to find you.”
“I know. That’s the danger.”
“You don’t scare me,” she whispers. A beat of silence pulses between us, heavy with things left unsaid. Her eyes drop, lingering on my chest where my shirt is half-open, then flick back up to my face.
“You haven’t fed since we met.”
I let out a strained sound at the reminder. “I’m well aware.”
She closes the distance, and her fingers brush mine. She’s hesitant at first, then bolder, her hands sliding up my forearms until they settle on my chest. My heart betrays me, staggering into a frantic rhythm beneath her touch.
She gazed up at me, her eyes glassy. “You saved Saddiq.”
I swallow thickly. “Yes.”
“You saved him before you knew me. Before you cared. Why?”
I clutch her hands with my own finally, squeezing them between my fingers. “Do you really not feel it? That what we have is more than just my lust?”
“Yes, but…Kai–”
“Kaius has felt it too. What the three of us have…it could be unique and beautiful if only we would all accept it for what it is.”
“Accept that we somehow belong to each other? You, me, and Kai?”
Her gaze drops to my lips. I don’t move. Not until she leans up, pressing her mouth to mine with a quiet desperation draped in heat and need. She rises up on her toes like she has wings of her own.
“How do we accept it?” she asks.
