Amid Clouds and Bones

by Ella Fields

“Let me make myself crystal fucking clear, little thing.” My eyes widened at the ease with which he’d cussed. “Out of all the dangers awaiting you in my court, I’m the one you’ll need to be protected from.”

His presence was a flare of heat at my back, and his voice low and scathing. “Remove your hands, or I’ll remove them from your body and make you eat them.”

“I’m afraid I’m tired of teaching males how to treat me.”

“All I’ve ever done is what others have forced upon me.” I met her gaze, weariness flattening my rising voice. “My life has never been my own.”

“Use your heart, Mildred. You’ll find that if you do, freedom often follows.”

“When you laugh, I remember what joy feels like.”

“Losing love changes people.” Daylia agreed with a sad smile. “It alters values, and sometimes, who we are entirely. For who are we without our inner compass to guide us?” Her head shook. “Powerful, love. Perhaps the most powerful magic of all.”

“Prince.” I twined my legs around him again. The question came airless—choked. “What in the skies have you done?” “You did this.” He grunted, then trembled when my fingernails dug into his smooth back. “And there’s no changing it. Believe me, I’ve tried.”

“Atakan.” My voice croaked. “Tell me what really happened.” He halted before the door. Without looking at me, he dragged his hand through his hair, pushing it back over his head as he exhaled roughly. “We mated.”

Atakan’s scent was a cloying cloud providing instant relief, and his venomous tone a sweet song. “Unless you wish to wear your entrails as a crown when I chain you in iron and bury you alive, remove yourself from my bed and my mate.”

Since the moment I’d met him, he’d poked holes into my mind, recolored my heart, and snatched my soul.

“I’ll protect you.” I stared down at him, a brow raised. “You once said that you were the one I’d need to be protected from.” “You remember.” The admission left me before I could think it through. “How does someone forget words that made them who they are?”

“It was you I had to survive, Atakan.” “And did you?” His head tilted. “Did you survive me in the end, dread?” We both knew I had, and as a result, that I hadn’t survived him at all.

“I might not care for much of anything outside of my desires, but that doesn’t mean I’m completely heartless.” Her hand settled on my hip, and my clinical tone roughened. “That doesn’t mean I cannot love you.” I clasped her chin, my head lowering. “That doesn’t mean I don’t need you to be as obsessively in love with me as I am with you.”