Page 23 of Queen of the Wicked
He just kneels beside me, breath slow, eyes soft.
“You are something new,” he says. “But new doesn’t make you unlovable.”
My throat tightens. I don’t know what to say to that.
Later, after I’ve washed the soot from my skin, I catch Rowan still watching me. Not like a predator. Not like a lover, either.
Like someone studying a new constellation he hasn’t yet named.
“You care about him,” he says.
“Kaius?”What a stupid question.“I love him. Of course I care about him.”
“And what about him?” he asks. “Do you think he still loves you?”
“What a cruel thing to ask. Of course he does.” I sigh. “But…I don’t think he sees all of me anymore. The parts that are new and uncertain. I think he’s trying to, but he doesn’t look at me the way he used to.”
Rowan takes a step toward me, leaning onto the cool marble. His wings twitch in the soft wind and I watch the pretty colors reflect onto the marble as if his wings were made of diamonds.
His presence is comforting and calm in an unending storm that has followed me since I crawled back from the grave.
“I see you,” he finally says. There’s no double meaning, no snugness in his voice. Just truth.
“And?” I ask. He doesn’t respond. He only meets my gaze for a moment, before the silence between us cracks like thin ice over a frozen lake.
My heart races when his soft lips touch mine. It’s featherlight–barely there, but the first thing that’s felt grounding in my life in weeks.
When he pulls away, I gulp. “You shouldn’t have done that.”
“Did you dislike it?” he asks.
I can’t answer him.
So I simply slip away under his wing and head inside.
Twenty
Kaius
The scent of scorched earth lingers in the air long after the smoke has cleared. I stand in the shadows of the courtyard, arms crossed over my chest, watching them.
‘I love him. Of course I care about him.’
‘I don’t think he sees all of me anymore.’
He asked her those things because he knew I was watching, and he knew she’d tell him the truth. I didn’t expect her answer to sound so…heartbroken.
And when he gently placed a kiss to those lips I’ve melted into so many times, pulling her into his orbit without any of his lustful magic…something in me broke. Not in an angry, jealous way. But something painful, like the realization that he’s been telling me all along–I’mlosingher.
She’s less volatile after just a few days with him. Less afraid of her own power. Her posture is looser and more confident.
She doesn’t look like the girl who pulled herself back from the death for me. She’s something else. Something stronger, and regrettably, something not entirely mine anymore.
I hate the guilt clawing inside my chest that whispers I could have done more. That I should have done more. Instead, I’ve kept her away from her own strength. Caged her in comfort and called it protection.
And Rowan has given her the very thing I was too afraid to offer:
Freedom.
