Page 81 of Autumn Queens & Shadows

He managed to reach out one stuporous arm to the wall, bracing himself against it while the other was over my shoulders. He pressed his face to the crown of my head and hummed. “You smell so good.”

“Not if you keep rubbing up on me,” I said, pulling back and trying to usher him to the bathroom. Failing, by the way, because he was one massive pile of man and muscles.

My hair went loose, and I spun to him just as he pulled the ribbon out of my hair. The look of amusement on his drunken face disappeared all of a sudden, his gaze dropping to the end of the ribbon he held between his fingers, right over the embroidery on it.

“My mother makes these,” he said, bunching all the ribbon in a tight fist.

“She taught me,” I said, trying to pull each of his fingers back to get my ribbon back, but he wouldn’t let me. “Malik, give it back.”

“Were you there? When she died.”

That tight noose wrapped around my neck, making my throat burn and turn hoarse. “I was.”

“Did she ask for me?”

“Yes,” I whispered. “Every day. She would sit and wait for you on her balcony.”

His knees gave up and he dropped to the ground, two fists pressed to his eyes. For a second, he didn’t look like the terrifying man he was. He looked like a grieving boy who had just realised he’d lost his mother.

I went to my knees before him, reaching a hand to his shoulder and attempting to comfort him the best way I knew how. “It’s alright,” I said, patting his back.

His body began shaking and then a broken sob filled the massive room.

Pulling his hands off his face, I climbed on his lap and hugged him. Burying his face on my shoulder, he only cried harder. And harder. And harder.

“You’re scaring me,” I said, hugging him tightly.

“Not as much as you scare me,” he muttered, hiccupping.

Climbing off his lap, I tried to get his massive body up to his feet. “Come on, please.” I panted. “Up, come on.”

Somehow, I managed to get him to stand and carried him to the bathroom. When I loosened my hold on him to reach and turn on the tap, he lost his balance and dropped inside the bath, fully clothed. “Alright,” I said to myself. “A clothed bath. I’m sure people have those.”

He didn’t react to the water when it started pouring and quickly filling the bath. Not to tell me if it was too hot or too cold.

Crouching down, I braced both hands on the bath edge and rested my chin on them, watching him and waiting for the water to sober him up like it usually did.

His eyes peeled open, searching the room until they landed on me. The water stirred as he lifted a hand to reach for my face, fingers briefly grazing my chin.

“Come here.”

“Where?” I asked, standing.

The response was very faint and broken, so I leaned in to hear him better. When I did so, he wrapped an arm around my waist and pulled me in the water, making me squeak. “Malik!”

“Mal,” he said, pulling me to lay on his chest. “How many times do I have to tell you to call me Mal.”

Pulling back, I smacked a hand on his chest, sending water splashing everywhere. “Look what you did,” I said, shivering, but not from the cold, I never got cold. His hand that he’d braced on my hip fell away and so did his smirk when his eyes dropped from my face to my body.

“What?”

I looked down on myself. The nightgown had turned almost transparent when it had soaked from the water, curving around my breast and clinging to every little detail on my body. I might as well have been naked.

“Get out, Thora.”

I flinched back, reaching to cover my chest with my arms.

He groaned and I realised a little too late I was now sitting on his…his—