I love the sound of his happiness.
For several moments, he holds me like that. A sensation settles into me. One I’ve never felt before. It’s a familiar feeling. An unexplainable thing that makes me remorseful. It’s like tingling regret weighting into my stomach, but I don’t understand it at all.
I pull back from him slowly, his hands slide against my sides as I put a foot of space between us. I think the back and forth of feeling loved by their family and feeling completely unwanted by the leaders of this society is making me literally sick to my stomach. It’s too much up and down with my emotions, and I’ve spent so long alone that I just don’t even know how to take it all in.
That must be it …
I belong here. I feel like I belong. Except when Lord Carlin and his shitty batty daughter remind me that I don’t.
Part of me wants to say I don’t care. I don’t, I don’t care. But part of me fucking does. A stupid insecure part of me that I’ll never admit to hates that I care what the most important leader in this village thinks of me.
I huff a sigh, the weird negative energy in me thickening with each passing second.
“I’m going to talk to Aggie.” She’ll make me feel better. She above all people knows what it’s like not to fit somewhere.
Rime nods quietly, his thumbs pushing back and forth slowly against my hips. He looks up at me with the intensity of his frost kissed gaze. It’s like he knows I’m overthinking things with Brylee. It’s like he sees it as clear as day when he looks in my eyes.
“Ifshehurts you…” He leans forward, sealing his assurance against my skin as he kisses my collar bone slowly. “…if that cunt ever hurts you…” Another swipe of his tongue and a heavy kiss against the curve of my neck has my lips parting with a shaking breath. “I’ll rip her judgmental fucking voice box out with my teeth, Arlow.” His ominous words are spoken so casually it’s scary. The weird mixture of lust and hostility is hard to follow. His lips press to my jaw, arousing me with every promising kiss and with every dark word he says. “Don’t forget your coat. It’s going to snow soon.” He pulls back from me with that sudden change in his tone and his train of thought.
My chest rises and falls as he turns back to his window to dissect the shadows in the dark. His warning of snow makes a burst of excitement flurry inside me. I’ve never seen real snow before. The tropical warmth of the coast never allowed it.
I swallow down the excited feeling rising within my chest and my eyes narrow on him curiously.
“How do you know it’s going to snow soon?”
His spine stiffens even more, and he slowly turns to me with an insulted look in his handsome features.
“I’m an ice dragon from the great Northern Kingdom of Attika.”
A beat of silence follows that very obvious explanation.
My lips part, but I only nod my head.
“Of course.” My fingers trail down the length of his forearm, softening his features the moment I touch him. “I’ll be in soon.”
I make it one single step away before he speaks again.
“Shoes, Arlow. You need shoes also.”
I look toward the shadowed corner where the pretty shoes that Helen got me lay. I kicked them off the moment she was out of sight. But, it seems I have to be a responsible adult and wear the foot prisons when the temperatures drop outside.
Another sigh pushes from my lips.
Adult life is very overrated.
I shove my feet inside the soft cushioned shoes, pull Chaos’ winter coat from off the hook on the wall, and then slip out before Rime can lecture me any further.
The house is quiet. Not a sliver of light is seen down the long, dark hallway. Kain told me Chaos’ father, Marlen, built Helen this big beautiful house when she was pregnant and he promised her as many kids as she would ever want. I wonder if he realized she’d want enough to fill every single room.
Chaos’ father built Myla’s house as well when she was pregnant with Kain. Her husband died before she even found out she was carrying his child. When Marlen asked how many extra rooms she’d want aside from her own, she told him just one.
My heart sinks just thinking about how different the two women’s lives are. And yet, how completely alike they both are.
Despite everything life has done to them.
The wooden banister leads me downstairs and the lower level is just as quiet. Lines of moonlight fall across the floor where the curtains let in small amounts of light within the darkness. Quiet breaths sound through the room and Sinister is fast asleep on the big cushioned couch. He sleeps where I sleep. Myla offered him her couch, but he’s always slept over here near me.
I love him for that. I love him for watching over me for so long. He’s wasted years of his life watching over me. And I selfishly can’t let him go.
