Page 8 of Queen of the Wicked
I look at the mirror again, and my gaze alone cracks the remaining panels. The air turns sour with the scent of magic I’ve only ever known when the Priestesses are in the room.
But I’m alone.
I fall to my knees, and beg the darkness inside me to let me breathe, but it doesn’t care. It wants this. It wants to hurt me. It wants me to hurt someone else. It wants to consume.
I can’t breathe. My throat tightens and pins me to my place on the floor. The marble continues to crack under my palms and the velvet lining the walls burst into unnatural blood-red flames.
For a moment, a part of me wants to give up and just let it take me. I close my eyes, trying to decide if that’s the magic talking or my conscience.
Then I feel something behind me. Not malice, not magic. Warmth.
A hand gently touches my shoulder.
And the room goes quiet. I look up, and the room isn’t destroyed. The curtains aren’t on fire. The mirrors aren’t shattered. Everything was an illusion, trying to get me to break.
I hear someone softly say my name from behind, and then a warm hand gently caresses my shoulder.
I turn my head to find Rowan kneeling behind me, his wings slowly unfurling and wrapping the space around me like acocoon of safety, and I get the strangest feeling that I’ve felt that safety once before.
“Why are you here?” I ask, a bit harsher than I intended to, but everything I say lately seems to be laced with poison.
“You were calling for me.”
I furrow my brow. “I don’t remember saying anything.”
“Not with your mouth, maybe. But you were calling for me. I felt it.”
“Why would I call for you and not Kaius? You’re not making any sense.”
Though that ever-present smirk is still on his face, his voice is soft, almost reverent. “I can leave if you want.”
I don’t answer him, and instead take a deep breath before sitting on my calves and rubbing my hands down my face, trying to wipe away my troubled expression. I try to take a slow, even breath, but it comes out shaky like it dragged itself through thorns in my chest.
“Do you know what’s happening to me?” I ask quietly.
He takes a deep breath. “No, but I think whatever is happening to you is happening to all magic, in more subtle ways. I can feel it with mine. It feels stronger, but more volatile. Uncontrollable.”
I look at him with my mouth turned down. “Is that what your explanation is for what you did to me in the courtyard?”
He huffs out a laugh. “That was all me, darling. Perhaps you’d like another taste?”
“I—"
I try to deny him, but the next time I inhale a breath, I’m intoxicated with the smell of sage, balsam, and a slight hint of citrus. The next time I blink, Rowan is surrounded in a pretty silver aura that twinkles, and I can’t look away. His touch on my shoulder is hot and I want to pull him closer to feel the warmth everywhere.
That’s what I do. I pull him on top of me by the front of his jacket, chest to chest as his wings spread out, the marvelous feathers on full display.
My breath shudders as I meet his eyes after glancing at his lips. “Kaius will be angry,” I say quietly. So much of me knows this is wrong, but the rest of me wants him so badly I’m almost ready to cry. “He’ll kill you.”
Rowan sighs, and then suddenly, his magic releases me. I blink and shake my head to escape the remnants of the trance, push him off me, and sit up. The fire in my veins that was molten for him dissipates as quickly as it came.
I want to be angry, I do. But something in Rowan’s face looks broken and sad, and I can’t bring myself to scream at him like I want to.
He backs off completely, standing and walking away. Just before he passes through the doorway, he turns to me slightly, and whispers: “You will never be alone in this, Adelasia. Not while I’m alive. That’s a promise.”
Six
Rowan
