Evergreen (Evergreen, #1)

by Autumn Woods

To anyone who ever hid pieces of themselves to feel safe. I’m sorry, you deserve so much more.

He grunts in agreement, rolling over like some kind of obese beagle.

"You look sweaty," observes Stellan. He's brimming with intelligent wisdom this morning.

I grip her shirt around her neck, my eyes burning into hers. I'm furious that she snuck into my halls. I'm furious that she has spied on me. I'm furious that she keeps me awake at night. I'm furious that she sedated my guards, and more than anything, I'm furious that she lets that other immortal touch her.

I cannot risk the safety of my people just because I want to sleep with her. But holy shit, do I want to sleep with her.

That fucking hair.

“I don’t believe I should want you like I do either, Renna.” “But you do,” she murmurs, her eyes snapping back to mine. Her face is elaborately painted with silver moonlight and black shadows, and in looking at her eyes I feel something I haven’t seen for a long time; empathy. “But I do.” “I should go.” “You should go,” I agree. She doesn’t move. Neither do I.

I sob for the child who wished on her birthdays that she could never have been born. I sob for the children that I'll never have. I sob for everyone I've lied to. But mostly I just sob for Onyx who has had his life ruined by it all. I’m a monster, infecting everything I touch with lies and deceit.

Rexxan, busy helping another child who has managed to get porridge actually into his nose. How do they manage that?

"If you shake your head hard enough, I can't read it."

My hurried fingers undo his belt, tossing it across the room so hard it cracks the mirror. I raise an eyebrow at him. “Doesn’t that mean we’ll have bad luck?” “You’re my bad luck, Ren, not the fucking mirror,”

"Did you think of me? When we were apart?" "I fucked your underwear, Renna,"

"Rexxan Obsidian Tsellyx Rellyn Hallenian, King of the Dark Forest and Green Woodland, Commander of the Five Kingdom Alliance, Guardian of the Fire Stone." "That's better. You should only be calling me that in bed."

The corner of his mouth lifts a little as he looks at me. ‘Good girl,’ he mouths,

“Anything, Ren. I'd give you anything,”

In terms of torture, I think her pulling my teeth would be preferable to this. She’s two feet away from me, and I miss her. How the mighty have fallen.

"Where the fuck have you been?" he whispers, looking at me in wonder. "My fucking soulmate. My fucking panacea."

"So why the rope? Have you always been like this or...did you like, have a rope-based awakening? Do you have rope dreams? Was your first wife just a ball of rope?" "Stop talking, Rennalya,"

I'd like to spend my life with her. Why is this realisation hitting me now of all times? I want Renna to be my wife.

"I love you so much more." It's not true, because my love for her eclipses the sun, the moon, and the stars above us.

grief is just love with nowhere to go.

We spend so much time tearing ourselves down in comparison to other women that we forget that what we ought to be doing is building ourselves up with other women."

"Are you fucking malfunctioning?" "Are you fucking malfunctioning?"

And honestly, I love myself. I'm proud of myself. Because every time I told myself there is no challenge I cannot overcome, I was right.