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We tell ourselves twisted lies to tangle around our wicked truths, all so that we can get caught up in the bind and not have to face bare regrets.
Ish. I’m a strongish woman. That ish is going to have to be good enough for now.
“You see a commander from another kingdom’s army coming toward your king’s favored, and your instinct is to back the fuck up?” he seethes.
“You caught me,” I say, though my voice comes out in more of a whisper, the sound of an unsaid question drifting inside of it. He tips his chin down, eyes coating me like shade against a scorched day. “I’ll do that anytime you need catching, Goldfinch.”
“We’ve been over this. You couldn’t even stand upright, Auren. I’m not putting you down,” he tells me, his voice the rough scrape of rocks, hard and unyielding. “I don’t care if Midas hears about me touching his favored. In fact, I hope he does.”
“My own good was stuck on a pirate ship, with an aura like a beacon that flared across the Barrens,” he grits out, a thick spun voice meant to tie knots around me. “My own good was cowering before men who were nothing—fucking nothing—in comparison to her.”
“My own good hated me, fought me, argued with me, but I didn’t care, because I watched her slowly come out of her shell, peeling back one layer at a time, and it was stunning.” He raises a finger in front of my face. “I got one touch. One taste, and if it was an act of selfishness, then you should know, it certainly wasn’t one-sided, Auren.”
“I’m saying that you are my own good. And for you, I gave you a choice, but you chose him.”
“I don’t choose him. Not anymore. I’m choosing me.”
“Because it suits me to do so.” I’m pinned with the pierce of his eyes just like a needle to a moth’s wings, and the sting is the same.
Everything that happened tonight—him carrying me, his words, the heat of his hips caught between my thighs as his lips
grazed my cheek—they were stolen moments. Moments that we can’t afford to have. Not with our goals so misaligned. Maybe as Rip and Goldfinch, but as Ravinger and Auren? Never.
“I’m glad you’re choosing you,” he says quietly, and my lips part, like I want to swallow the rumble of his cadence. “You are?”
I go completely still as he moves his hand and grips my chin, like he wants to make sure I’m paying attention. I am. “Yes, Goldfinch. Because I’m choosing you, too.”
It’s an unnatural stillness. The kind that makes my breath shrivel up while confusion and fear slithers through me. Fury pumps into the air around us, and then, with a voice as dark as the pits of hell, Slade says something that makes my eyes go wide. “Why the fuck is there a bruise on your cheek?”
“What I want…” His laughter is soaked in somber asperity, eyes casting for wisdom from a sky that can’t see us. After a pushed breath through his tense chest, he looks at me again. “There’s only one thing that I find I want anymore.”
You’re not the villain in my story.”
“I am,” he says without remorse, his sharp jaw tight with tension. “But I’ll be the villain for you. Not to you.”
“I’ve wanted you since the moment I laid eyes on you, Goldfinch. I was just waiting for you to catch up.”
“But I get all of you too. I won’t ever again give myself to someone who doesn’t give himself back to me. So make very certain that you’re choosing this, King Ravinger,” I parrot back to him. “Because once you do, there’s no turning back.” He chuckles, the sound like a gravelly baritone that’s music to my ears and makes my own lips lift. “Oh, I’m certain,” he replies. “I chose you the moment you called me a prick, and your ribbons tried to knock me on my ass.”
“Go sit on my bed.” I shake my head. “I’ll gild it.” “I don’t care,” he says roughly.
I look toward the glass of the door, the dying gray light breathing out with the last exhale of day. Finally, I tug off my gloves, letting them drop like a weight on the ground, more indicative than any bell toll. The moment my hands are bare, I reach back and touch the wall, and Slade freezes when he sees my bare skin collide with it...and no gold comes. “Thank fuck.” In five long strides, he demolishes the space between us. He’s suddenly there, gripping me by the waist, hard lips fused to mine, and finally, we combust.
If only we could stop competing, stop the petty jealousies, stop letting men pit us against one another. Imagine what women could do if we started being loyal to each other?
Digby, whose swollen eyes are suddenly wide open and latched onto me with recognition. I almost cry out at the sight of them. The brown of tree bark, scalded by the rays of a summer sun. I see his throat work, how it bobs beneath his messy gray beard, and then his cracked lips move to say, “Miss Auren,” and I really do cry out this time. He’s alive.
Then, Midas brings the sword down on them, the edge of the sharp blade slicing into their golden lengths, and my entire sense of self fractures. All I know is utter agony. Utter, eclipsing, unmitigated agony. I don’t just scream. I rupture.
head. “I’m your guard, Miss Auren. My place is with you,” he declares, as though it should be obvious.
“You were the closest thing I had to a father,” I admit, my voice small, eyes cast down as I twirl the ribbon around my finger. “I knew I drove you nuts sometimes, but you always made me feel safe. And I never thanked you enough.”
A chance where I can be safe, far away from men like Zakir West and Barden East. Because me, I’m going south.
I know what they see, but it isn’t what I see,
metallic glint I’ve wrought is mine. Another inhale sucks into my lungs as I sag against Midas’s hold, blade forgotten, time suspended. I open my mouth and tip up my hands, calling to the gold I’ve made. And it answers back. With fire in my eyes and a flap of furious wings in my chest, I bring my gold thrashing to life. The floor goes molten; the walls bleed; every goblet, drapery, instrument, chair—they all turn viscous and malleable, melted down by the pure fury that burns in my veins.
