Page 108 of Autumn Queens & Shadows

I slipped two fingers inside me, not even slightly enough to fill the need he’d created in me. Despite how big he was, he would have taken me so easily. So, so easily from how wet I was.

My whole body felt like a charged lightning bolt as I pumped my fingers inside my body, my other hand poorly attempting to bring back the memory of his touch on my breast as I palmed one, my fingers rubbing a taunt nipple until that coiling sensation tangled deep in my belly, desperately wanting to unfurl.

Burying my face on his pillow, I cried out a moan with his name, my whole body turning to liquid as I melted into a puddle of limbs on the white sheets. I could cry from how not nearly satisfying that was.

I needed him.

As the room was fading in the darkness and my eyes were slipping shut, I felt the bed dip and then a small, chaste kiss pressed to my cheek. “You listen so well, little bird,” he whispered in my ear, leaving another kiss there. “So fucking well.”

Chapter twenty-five

Grey Daisies

Thora

He’d been up before I was, leaving the entire room for me to nervously circle around as I got ready to face him after last night. I’d even worn his nightshirt as I’d gotten myself ready, wanting his perfume soaking into my skin. Shamelessly, I’d used his soaps and shampoos, too. The entirety of my chambers had been soaked in eucalyptus by the time I’d left.

I found him sitting in the dining room I never used along with Lilith as they had breakfast. Besides the morning greetings, and the very long and very slow once over he’d given me, we hadn’t exchanged any other words despite how many I had thought of on the way from my room to here.

He’d entertained every little story Lilith told him of her time in Red Coven. She called her time there ‘the preparing’ instead of what another would name it—being marinated in her magic like venison for her master.

The more I looked at her, the more I saw myself in her. There was a mountain of ugly hidden behind her bright smile. My breakfast soured in taste when I realised how much it resembled my own.

Lilith gave us one last wave before following Oryn towards the stables. He’d volunteered to take her back. Neither Malik nor I thought it was because of his kind old heart as much as it was to meet with the Violet Witch he so fancied but didn't have the gall to confess to.

Malik turned to press a kiss on my neck, startling me a little. “You smell like me,” he groaned. After leaving a few more tortuous kisses on my face, he said, “Will be back just before lunch. We’ll eat together.”

I nodded, and blurted like an idiot, “Be careful.”

He threw me an amused look over his shoulder. “Yeah, you too, little bird.” Then I heard him chuckle to himself all the way down to where his soldiers were waiting by the castle gates.

Burying my face in my hands, I sighed. “Why am I such an awkward idiot?”

Wait a minute. Why was he such a prick, too?

Why wasn’t he acknowledging anything?

Was there even something to acknowledge?

I mean, it wasn’t like we did anything.

That chain of thoughts took a long time to come to an end.

I’d gotten through about half of the court reports the northern cities had brought when Neo entered the meeting room without even knocking.

He stood there for a while, silently trying to convey something to me through his disappointed stare. Sometimes, I think he forgot that the people around him weren’t like him and couldn’t read other’s emotions.

Like always, it took him a minute or so to realise that and speak. “You’ve not called for me anymore.”

“I know.”

He threw an agitated look around the room. “So does he know then?”

I put the pen down and sighed. This conversion was bound to surface one day, and he’d decided that this was the day. “Does he know that you and I have been exchanging favours for the past couple of years?”

Stepping forward, he loudly said, “Does he know that I’ve been inflicting and deflecting your emotions for years?”

Not my finest of moments. “Why should he? Why should you care at all whether he knows or not? Ah, you think he will be disgusted with me.”