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Started reading
October 12, 2025
My gods, the woman was like the sun. He needed tinted glasses just to look at her.
She was afraid, but she knew now: fear usually meant you were standing on the edge of something new, something self-altering, something potentially good. Fear was not something she would shy away from ever again.
They’d been there all along, hidden behind the misplaced idea that women did not need to be watched so closely, that they couldn’t be any sort of true risk.
“I would never make the mistake of underestimating a woman like you. It would be a fatal one.”
His eyes moved in three different directions: first to the pants hugging her thighs, then to her red lips, then back to the papers.
“Does your mind live in the gutter?” She shook her head, tapping a finger against her lips. “No, but it rents there on occasion.”
Sage stumbled down the stairs, wearing another pair of thigh-hugging pants that made him want to do bodily harm to anyone whose gaze lingered on them for too long.
“Because we are always expected to plaster a grin on our faces even when we don’t wish to. I used to do it so often, I stopped being able to tell when I was smiling for me or for someone else.
So now, I don’t smile unless I’m one hundred percent sure it’s something I want to do, not something someone else wants me to do.”
And there it was—that was it. The reason Becky could barely stand the woman: she was in a constant state of fulfilling the needs of others, and it reminded Becky just a smidge too much of a person she no longer knew.
“Sage, don’t you dare—”
“I have to wonder,” he bit out, stalking over to her and pulling her up to stand, “do you have absolutely no care for your own well-being? Or are you simply so naive to the world that you believe it will never harm you?”
She awkwardly reached up to pat his shoulder, shrinking when he angled closer. Not to mention getting a little excited by it, if she was being completely honest. And completely pathetic.
He’d gone far too long without bedding a woman; it was the only reasonable explanation for losing control of himself so thoroughly.
The creature’s attention went back to him, and it turned cold. “I don’t like him.” Sage waved her hand and patted its finger. “That’s all right.” She stage-whispered behind her hand, “Lots of people don’t.”
She didn’t have the will or the self-control when it came down to the things she wanted, the things she loved.
“Greed. Humans desire to take; they rarely seek to give.
The magic of this world knows this and is beginning to hide to protect itself. The book was written to save it when that time comes.”
“I cannot abandon my piece of world, my piece of sky.
Precious things must be protected.”
“A token, for the kindness man so often lacks. A rare gift. Harvested from the stars themselves.”
“You know as well as I, Trystan Maverine, that humans demonize what they cannot understand. It isn’t our job to educate them, just to live the way we’re meant to with the knowledge that being called a monster does not make you one.”
“I could break you in two.” The knight gave her a crooked grin. “Do you promise?”
He was trying to make her laugh, to lighten her heart. The way she always tried to do for him, the way she tried to do for everyone. Nobody had ever done that, had ever tried to lighten things for her.
What can I even say that won’t break her heart? How can I be enough for her? For anyone?
“But—” Lyssa sniffed, dampening Evie’s nightgown with her tears. “Who is going to take care of you?”
Oh, Lyssa, myself. I’ve always taken care of myself with a false smile and brittle strength.
Sometimes”—Evie smiled—“the people who love you most in your life are the ones who choose you.”
Losing someone didn’t mean the end; it merely meant the beginning of the life you’d lead without them, the beginning of letting in the people you’d gain in their stead.
