Foul Heart Huntsman (Foul Lady Fortune, #2)

by Chloe Gong

“Is that my brother’s shirt?” Phoebe demanded. “Maybe,”

“You can’t be lying around wearing my brother’s clothes on today of all days. Go change.”

She missed him. Terribly. She had thought him a complete menace while he was here, complained to his face that he was a terror in her space, and he had only ever grinned in return, making an effort to bring her food or smooth her hair down when she was busy writing something.

“Let go of me,” Rosalind said through her gritted teeth. “Orion would let me tear them apart.”

Silas stepped on the accelerator. Phoebe leaned over to push his glasses up before they could crash from his obscured vision. And Rosalind watched her apartment fade from view, leaving behind the reporters.

Maybe the marriage had been fake, but his devotion to her was real.

“I reject that,” Rosalind whispered. Her voice shook, barely audible to herself, never mind to General Yan. “He loved me, and I left him.”

“Sweetheart,” Oliver said, “you don’t have to get so flustered to see me.”

“You know, Oliver”—Celia slapped her hand down, leaning forward—“it is really hard to provoke my temper, but somehow you are incredibly good at it.” The faintest hint of a smile tugged at his lips. “I have missed you quite fiercely.”

“Don’t be angry, sweetheart,” Oliver said. “Please?”

Without thinking, she reached to push his glasses up, sliding them along his nose in a familiar move.

“Oliver,” Celia said dryly, closing the door after herself. “There’s only one bedroom.” “What, you don’t like having the illusion of choice?”

“Oh, sweetheart, don’t say that.”

“Sweetheart?” Celia looked up. Her heart twisted. “Yes?” His brow furrowed. “What is your gun doing out?”

“Sweetheart.”

“You tied a pretty bow, Oliver. Whoever you are trying to restrain like that is going to free themselves in about ten seconds.” “It is only a temporary method. Don’t have such high standards, sweetheart.”

“For Orion’s sake, I hope she is,” Oliver countered. “Maybe it’ll save him when nothing else will.”

“Indulging in some nostalgia,” Phoebe replied. She waved him near. “Come look. I was so cute.” Silas wandered over compliantly. When he peered at the photograph she was holding out, he found a black-and-white page of a much younger Phoebe dressed in an oversize nightgown, knee-high in garden grass. A smile jumped to his face immediately. “I remember when you looked like this.”

Phoebe grinned. “Don’t be shy. Good looks run in the family.” He tried very hard not to blush.

Phoebe was… He didn’t even know how to describe Phoebe. An ever-expanding supernova. A hurricane that changed worlds and remade them.

When he spotted Rosalind, her heart dropped to the bottom of her stomach. She wasn’t afraid of him; she was terrified that she wasn’t going to get him back, that he had been pulled too far away to reach. In her plans, she had envisioned rescuing Orion to be as simple as meeting his eyes and convincing him to leave with her.

“You are nobody.” “Excuse me?” A wave of irrational anger overrode the pain of her landing. “I am your wife.”

“Orion, listen to me,” Rosalind gasped. “You cannot be that far gone. Whatever you have been brainwashed to believe, you can break out of it. Orion, please.”

“Sweetheart.”

“Yes, Alisa, I clearly see it when it’s my own blood.”

“What?” Rosalind curled her hand around Orion’s arm, holding him steady against the rocking car. “Why would we do that?”

“Shush, sweetheart.”

“I would have found you anywhere.” He reached forward. Tugged that piece of her hair, then tucked the curl behind her ear. “Across the world and under it. No matter how well you hide. It doesn’t matter where you go. I’ll always find you. Understand?”

Just as he pivoted to face her again, Phoebe threw her arms around him, the embrace so sudden that Silas entirely short-circuited, his brain signals frying into oblivion. This close, he could smell every layer of her perfume, from the initial wave of jasmine to the deeper traces of something heavy like whiskey. “Thank you,” she said, her words muffled against his chest. “I don’t know what I would do without you.” He lifted his hand, settling it on her back.

“Please don’t be angry at me,” Oliver said suddenly, “because this might be the last chance I have to do this.” Before Celia could ask what he was talking about, before she could so much as grasp the meaning of his words, Oliver slid a hand along the side of her neck, then kissed her on the mouth.

“I’m going to kill you,” Celia muttered, clambering out from the floorboards. “I’m going to save you, and then I’m going to kill you. Cut you into tiny chunks. I’ll feed you to the fish.”

no chance he could mimic the look of sudden sheer delight when he found a grenade in one of the wardrobes. With horror, Roma had immediately plucked it out of his hands, chiding that it wasn’t a toy.

“Those two are backstory. Forget about them.” “Ouch,” Roma said at the door. “We’re sensitive,” Juliette added.

“You didn’t mention a Benedikt,” Orion muttered. “He and Marshall are on their way now,”

“It’s easier to save the world, actually. Easier than saving myself. Easier than trying to save you. I’m not trying to prove a point by going after your mother. She’s just the only threat I can fight. Everything else… Everything else feels like a lost cause most days. Eventually I’ll destroy myself. Eventually you’re going to leave.” All of a sudden, Orion lifted his head, his eyes wide open like he had never been asleep. “I’m not going to leave.”

“I was waiting for you,” he said quickly. “I didn’t want to startle you, so I was waiting for you to come back. Don’t go.”

“Beloved.” Orion blinked. “Beloved?” “That was what you called me,” she said. “Not Rosalind. Beloved.”

“How could I be a sharpshooter when my aim is shit? You never taught me.”

“Oliver needs me.” “You don’t remember him.” “He’s my brother, isn’t he? Memory or no memory, how can I leave my brother to the wolves?”

“Then I must as well,” Orion concluded. “You are my side. It is not betrayal.”

They approached the car. Silas opened the passenger door for her.

At once, Rosalind wound an arm around Orion’s head and clamped her palm over his lips, preventing him from speaking further.

Rosalind put her hand back over his mouth. Slyly, instead of taking it as a reprimand, Orion set his head down on her shoulder, and suddenly it looked as if she were embracing him instead of shutting him up.

“So,” Alisa said as she and Orion started to walk west. “Do you want to hear all the juicy parts of the story that Rosalind skimmed over?” Orion grinned. “Oh, do I.”

He knew her, that much was certain. He felt her occupying immense space, the sound of her scoff and the color of her lips, the smell of her hair and the cadence of her voice. He couldn’t form the words that described how she existed in his head, but the feeling would balloon in his chest at any invocation—a soft feeling, a sweet feeling, less like sugar and more like springtime’s first warm breeze.

Silas didn’t mind if Phoebe didn’t love him as he loved her.

“Were you followed too?” Orion asked. “Only by one. Always easy to shake off.” Orion’s mouth twitched. “Confident.” Rosalind gave him a droll look. “Shouldn’t I be?” “Of course you should.” “Oh?” “I’m agreeing with you.” “Sounds like you’re challenging me.” “What? Never!”

“I was not flirting—” “I was.”

Orion laced his fingers through hers firmly.

“Hello,” Orion said slowly. He climbed out of the car. “I apologize that I don’t remember who you are, but as long as we weren’t lovers, I am sure I can make amends somehow.”