1. All of these infuriating men #2
“I’ve been so goddess-damned loyal to Odessa,” I finally said, not bothering to mask how dejected I felt.
“And this is what I get as thanks: bartered off to the dark fae in the name of trade and commerce. Only my fucking brother could go, ‘Oh, your people want to broker improved relations for the first time in a half-dozen centuries? Here, take my thoroughly deflowered, opinionated, half-breed of a half-sister as a token of my unwavering commitment to our nations’ and actually leave with a deal.”
Theo waited a moment, until after I’d finished my ranting tirade to quietly say, “Loyalty and obedience are not one and the same. We both know His Majesty values one of them far more than the other.”
Where my father valued a court of loyal but willful members, my brother loathed anyone who wasn’t prepared to drop and kiss his feet on a whim.
We often joked in the tavern about how his inner council was nothing more than a pack of hunting mutts, with the way they watched him in anticipation, like their only wish in life was to be dealt an ask by His Radiance.
Disgusting, truly.
“This is my home.” It was the last argument I had, and my shoulders sagged with it. “I was born in the fortress, and I’ve lived here my whole life. I…I’m a Wynn, for fuck’s sake. I belong here, not in Grimmoria.”
“I know, Nor. I know.” Theo didn’t look up as he swept the brush through the full length of my now-untangled hair in a slow pass.
“You were dealt a shite hand, but I can’t think of a better person to handle it.
You’re tough as fucking nails, and you’ve got the biggest heart out of anyone I’ve ever met.
There’s space for a new place and other people in there. ”
A lump built in my throat with fury, and I struggled to swallow it down. The burn that pricked at the corner of my eyes was another beast to contend with.
Mercifully, Theo ended his sentimentality there.
He reached past me, the warmth of his chest grazing my back, and set the brush down with a thud that felt thunderous in the morning quiet of my room. When his hands skimmed up my arms and landed on my shoulders, giving the tense muscles there a solid squeeze, I deflated with a sigh.
“You should go, Theo.”
It wasn’t what I wanted, but it felt critical to wedge the first measure of space between us, to prepare for the unfathomable distance it would become.
He nodded slowly, his full mouth drawn into a line as his touch dropped from my shoulders. I watched his reflection as he stepped away, tying his pants and starting at his buttons, but, of course, he had to stop and turn back.
“You’ll come ‘round before you go tomorrow…” Theo fixed me with a pointed look. “Right, Nora?”
“Of course.” I mustered a smile.
Theo knew I had a firm dislike of all emotional exchanges, let alone one with so much weight.
What he likely hadn’t realized was that saying goodbye to the people I loved more than life was something I outright refused to do.
Instead, I had written them each a brief letter of my fumbled feelings and gave my maid strict instructions not to distribute them until well after I had departed—which was a day earlier than my friends thought I was leaving.
They’d be furious, I was sure, but it was for the best.
If Theo was suspicious, he didn’t call me out, but he took steps back towards me that I wished he hadn’t.
“Still better give this to you now, I guess. Just in case.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a velvet satchel, setting its dense weight into my hand.
“Is this…?” I stared up at him before taking a peek at the pale blue powder inside, confirming my suspicions. “Theo. You didn’t.”
Not only did he despise the numbing panacea we all knew as Frost, but the quantity of it he’d just handed me would have cost him easily a month’s worth of guard salary, if not two.
And that was if he’d caught an alchemist or one of their porters in a good mood.
With how much of the damned powder had worked its way into my life after my father died, I knew just how fickle their prices could be.
“I did,” he said with an aggravating shrug.
“Maybe you won’t need it there. But just in case you do.
” Theo clasped my face between his warm palms and studied me with eyes full of a palpable sadness my quickly unraveling sanity couldn’t handle.
“I’ll see you later, sweets,” he whispered before he leaned in and kissed me gently.
Goddess, I didn’t want him to let go, even though we both knew he had to. How I didn’t crumple when he put distance between us again was a monumental feat.
“See you, Theo,” I warbled just before my door made a thunderous click shut.
In the silence of my room, everything I’d spent the last few months vehemently ignoring became impossible to hold off.
Measured breaths tore in and out of my lungs to keep that deafening silence from crushing me to the floor. My vision took on a watery edge, and I swore profusely as I tipped my face up at the vaulted stonework of the ceiling.
My ceiling, which I would never see again.
“Fuck,” I rasped. No matter how much I blinked, the blurring of my vision would not ease. “Gods damned. Get it together, Enora. Wynns don’t cry like this. We don’t freak out. We are calm. We are collected. We are—”
A set of knocks on my door ripped me right out of the thousand-times rehearsed pep talk my father gave me through three of the worst times in my life.
“Come in, Joyce,” I called out with insuppressible unease as I scrubbed my sleeve over my face. “It’s unlocked.”
My door hinges squealed, but silence followed.
I turned, and every muscle in my body tensed.
Standing in my doorway was not Joyce; it was my fucking brother, with his pompous velvet doublet, his upturned nose, and mousey-brown hair slicked back into a shell. His pants were tailored so fucking tight, you could see every dimple in his arse, along with the silk gloves he now never took off.