“Okay,” she whispered.
“Okay, what?” Claryn Duboi asked, not unkindly.
“Waryn will propose at the party,” Quin replied, every word tasting like despair. “And I will say yes.”
Black king falls.
With a happy sigh, her mother leaned back in her chair. “Excellent. I’m so glad we could come to a compromise.”
If asked what the rest of the conversation that followed was about, Quin wouldn’t have been able to say. She was disconnected from herself, from her body, like she was floating through a dream. Her mother dismissed her at some point, and she left the office.
She spotted the Anura who had brought them the tea standing by the china hutch, inspecting the silverware in the drawers. The moment Quin stepped into view, she shut the drawers and resumed dusting, expression almost challenging, like she was daring Quin to call her out.
“That’s not the real silver,” Quin said, and the Anura narrowed her bulbous eyes. “They keep that locked up. Dorys has the key, though I don’t advise trying to steal it.”
“What’s it to you?” the Anura sneered in a nasally voice.
Quin simply shrugged. “Your funeral, I suppose.”
Sniffing in offense, the Anura spun on her webbed feet and waddled away, grumbling under her breath. Quin didn’t actually care if her parents got robbed—it wasn’t like they couldn’t afford new silver. If anything, she was impressed by the Anura’s gall. Few would risk the wrath of the Dubois.
Not wanting to spend another second in her parents’ home, she closed her eyes and dematerialized in a swirl of smoke and flame, refitting her molecules back together in the study of the home she shared with Waryn. The home she would always share with Waryn, from here on out.
At her sudden appearance, Waryn jolted in his seat, nearly spilling his scotch. He slapped the book he was reading on his lap and scowled at her.
“Really, my dear, do give a man warning. This is a sixty-year single malt, and I don’t want to waste a drop,” he chided lightly, his playful frown sobering into a more genuine expression of worry. “My gods, Quin, what’s happened?”
“I think…” Quin started, breath catching. “I think I’m about to cry.”
An unhinged noise of alarm passed his lips as he hurriedly bookmarked his place and set both the book and the scotch on the side table. “Good gracious, whatever for?”
“I just came out to my mother,” she said, still floating, though she could feel herself coming down, settling back into her body.
Defying color theory, Waryn’s face paled, and he jumped to his feet with another horrified squeak. “Why would you do that?”
Quin moved her mouth wordlessly, and he rushed toward her, cupping her face in his hands. Her sore cheek smarted, andshe flinched. Dropping his hands to her shoulders instead, he scrutinized her.
“Your cheek is swollen.”
“She hit me,” she said with about the same inflection she’d use commenting on the weather.
“That absolute witch,” he snarled, smoke billowing out of his nose as his eyes flared with icy flame. “Are you alright?”
“I… I…” She tried several times to say she was fine, but the words strangled her.
He took both her hands in his and led her to the loveseat, guiding her to sit. He handed her his scotch, and she took a burning sip, savoring the heat as it licked down her throat and roared to life in her belly. It sparked feeling back into her extremities, and her hands began to shake.
“Quin?” Gentle fingers cupped her chin and lifted her gaze to his. “Tell me what happened.”
So she did. She told him everything, from the confession of her sexuality to the chamomile tea to the threats against his reputation and social status. By the end, her hands were shaking so severely he had to take away her drink to stop her from spilling it on her slacks.
“I told her we would get engaged at the party,” Quin said, breaths sawing out of her in harsh pants. “Sh-she wants us to marry in the spring. She doesn’t want a drawn-out engagement.”
“Fuck what she wants,” Waryn practically snarled, squeezing her hands just shy of too tight. “She can’t dictate everything. We can have a long engagement if we want. Or we don’t have to get engaged at all.”
Shaking her head in panic, Quin cinched her tail around his forearm. “No, we have to. If we don’t, she will ruin you.”
“I’d love to see her try,” he said flippantly.
