It’s distracting.
For a moment.
My fist is balled up once more and flung forward immediately the moment I’m free from Avian’s calming hold. My punch is straightforward and cracking against the smooth line of Roman’s nose.
A growl is followed closely by excessive curses that bring a pleased smile to my lips.
“Fuck! Are you just irrationally violent all of the time?” He asks on a muffled grunt.
“Only sometimes. When it’s called for,” I whisper with a smirk.
“That’s enough. Stop antagonizing her,” a deep voice commands.
“Me? What about her?” Romey’s all but pouting while I’m all but sticking my tongue out at the fucker in victory.
Mom likes me best. Get over it, Bruh.
“Avian, come with me to check in with the Prince. Someone will be suspicious if the High Hell do not report tonight.” Zilo’s orders seem endless and articulate. Even I’m nodding along like I have a clue what’s happening at the moment. “Rome, take the girl to our bedroom. Don’t let her out, and don’t let her be seen. And for hell’s sake, fix your fucking nose. It’s disgusting.” Strong and direct footfalls stride away from me, and I’m left stunned in the dark.
WithRoman. My lip curls lightly.
His hand wraps around my upper arm with just enough tightness to tell me he’s still pissed about the bloody nose thing.
I can’t see where we’re going. The flooring is cold concrete. It’s not dirty but not perfectly even either. Possibly large stone rocks but I can’t be sure. A slight chill bites the air, and I can’t help but wonder why the temperature is so low for hell. I imagined it a bit more…stuffy, I suppose.
Roman jerks me around this way and that as we turn maze-like corners every few steps we take, and he has yet to speak to me.
Perhaps I should apologize.
Perhaps I should not.
Definitely the latter. Yes. Definitely not.
My shoulders square despite how often my feet want to stumble. I don’t, of course. I keep up, and I let him brood the entire way. He stops us so abruptly that my mucus-sticky chest collides into his smooth shoulder. He tenses. I wait. I count the beats of my heart, and three pulses slip by in the awkward silence before the churn of metal turning with a quiet click sounds just lightly.
And pale light casts across his golden skin.
With one strong pull and a shove, he tosses me onto a bed. The springs bounce beneath me, and my anger wants to rise upall over again, but I swallow it down and peer around at my new surroundings instead. I take an inventory of every detail.
I do a fine job indeed of pretending to ignore the naked brooding man in the room covered in ungodly goo.
No windows line the tall black brick walls. The stone shimmers like beautiful poison glimmering among so much ebony. A black velvet settee faces a cold empty fire pit in the middle of the room. Two Victorian-style chairs also surround the circular pit, though they appear to be carved from black onyx, with sharp pointed backs.
Every inch of the room, including the bed I sit on, is inky or at best, dark ash. The sheets are silk beneath my touch. The color of charred coal. And the bed: it’s fucking enormous. A dozen wolves could sleep in this thing and never once so much as brush up against the other.
“Whose room is this?” My lashes lift, and I find Roman hunched over a basin bowl in the corner, his features darker than usual as he wipes away dried blood from the bruising bridge of his nose.
Ouch.
I pause to see how I feel internally about that.
…No. Still not sorry.
With the crimson-soaked cloth, he dabs once more, his eyes closing, his shoulders bunching together so tightly a line etches down the hard muscles of his shoulder blades.
Do not help him, Cersia. Do not pity him. He’s a cruel, cruel man. Do not extend kindness to the cruel, for they will accept it and then step on it until it bends, until it bows and until it finally breaks.
I know. I’ve been shattered by villagers just like him my entire life.
