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“Maybe my perceptions wouldn’t be so skewed if the people I trusted didn’t constantly trick and twist and lie,”
The burden of love I held for him for so long has scraped off. Peeled away like dried, dead skin flaking in a scorching sun.
Never again will I be the clay that he molds in his hold. I’m going to shape myself.
And who fucked them all over? YOU MY GUY
No, it was Auren
Basgiath???
They weren’t what I expected. But somehow, they ended up being exactly what I needed.
Because the world will keep on trying to leash me, men will continue trying to steer me in their grips of control. So I can’t just roll over every time. I can’t let that repressed temper of indignation sit stuck on that perch.
I’ve never felt so powerful, or perhaps I’ve never really comprehended what I’m capable of, because I’ve been reined with fears and doubts, led with manipulations.
“Shove down weakness, and strength will rise.
It wasn’t until my fist closed around emptiness that I realized I was grasping for him.
And that’s what makes my eyes sting with regret. He pushed me to light, to burn, only to douse me with ashen deceit.
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.
“I let you out of your cage,” Midas tells me, as if I should be grateful, as if he did any such thing. “No. I let myself out.”
Was he always this way? Or like a frog put into lukewarm water, did I just not notice the slow progression of the rising temperature of his greed until I was being boiled in it?
I’m your protector and your king.” My cager and betrayer.
But the eyes of liars are tricky things. They can show you what you want to see without ever reflecting the truth. It’s best not to look a liar in the eye. They’re so good at their own compulsions that their gazes hold steady, and then you’re the one who loses sight.
This male with the bottomless eyes has already snared me.
Same girl same
Yet my tiredness has stripped me down, because I just want to breathe. To stop planning, stop pretending, stop worrying, and just be for a moment.
“I’ll do that anytime you need catching, Goldfinch.”
Swoooooon
“Then you’d be a statue stuck right here on the stairwell, and I don’t think gold’s your color, Commander.” “I disagree. Gold has quickly become my favorite.”
“You’re very floppy.” I rest my head against his firm, muscled chest. “You’re very hard,” I counter. A rich, dark laugh slips from his mouth. “You’ve no idea.”
“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 can’t blink. I can’t think.
“I’m saying that you are my own good. And for you, I gave you a choice, but you chose him.”
“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.”
His hand moves to encase my jaw, angling me right where he wants me, and just that—the dominance of him, the strength but utter care—it makes me feel like I could burn forever.
Just a kiss. One kiss, and I’m wrecked, because I never want this to stop.
Get ready to rumbleeeeee
“I want them all slaughtered. Anyone comes within two hundred feet of the walls, I want them cut down like the ungrateful animals they are.”
Trump . 0
Digby would’ve grunted at me, telling me in that wordless way of his to stop moping around, but that thought just makes my stomach twist with a hurt I can’t ease.
Tell Slade and he'll help you dummy
“Time flies when you’re riding good c—” “Carriages,” Keon quickly intervenes, cutting him off with an elbow to the arm, stealing hurried looks at the frowning advisors.
Lol i love them
As if on cue, Slade strides into the room right then, dark voice whipping out without pause. “I think you got the better end of the deal, don’t you?”
Yassssss daddy Slade
That love-stained girl inside of me is gone. The one whose heart was broken with the pieces used to pin her up like a bug to a board. She was burned down with the force of his palm. Her ashes are now nothing but soil to sprout the stems of the wickedness that seems to suddenly bloom brighter.
He tips my head up, forcing me to look at him. “You make me so crazy, Auren.” I nearly scoff. Those are words to lay fault at my feet. “I’m not used to you behaving this way, but that was wrong of me. I lost my temper, but you know how much I love you. How much I need you.”
His touch gentles on my face, thumb wiping away the tear tracks like he wants to erase my every emotion, control everything I do, everything I feel. He wants to wipe me clean like a slate.
“You’re looking better.” I brush a palm over my cheek that’s still slightly bruised and swollen. “Yeah,” I say simply. She never asked what happened, and I didn’t offer up the information. But she knows. Women always do.
Watching her is like watching an old version of myself. She’s dazzled by him, by all the pretty things, by all the security that his promises come with. How could she not be? When that man turns his smiles and nice words onto you, it’s hard not to fall under his spell. Mist and I are more alike than she’d ever want to believe.
“Thanks,” I say, and then I start to walk away too, because being alone with Slade is bad for my plans. Much to my irritation, he follows me, sticking like a thorn in my side. I shoot him a look. “Do you mind?” Hands tucked into pockets, the bastard strolls. Leisurely. Like he has nothing better to do. “Not at all. I enjoy long walks in a dreary library.”
“I put up with all of it because he was different in private,” I admit. “He said just enough of the right things. When we were alone, when there were no other eyes around, he whispered pretty words and swore grand promises.”
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?”
Shitttttttts about to go downnnnnnn hehehe
“Who?” “Slade—” “Who, Auren?” he demands, his dark, seductive voice so contradictory to the violence held in his tone. Because he knows the answer. I can see it in his face. “Midas,” he snarls, like a predator with its eyes trained on a trespassing hunter in the woods.
I’m glad for the anger I see on his face. Misery may love company, but anger thrives on it.
“What do you wanna do?” Osrik asks evenly. “Kill the fucker?”
My favoritessss <3
“I don’t like when people try to coerce me, Midas. It would serve you well to remember that I still have my army on your doorstep. Do you really want to get on my bad side?”
“Get out of his bed!” I hiss, but the damn things are strong. I try to get them off, but they pull right out of my grasp again and continue doing barrel rolls. With an exasperated sigh, I lean over and shove my hands beneath the blankets, grabbing hold of the ribbons like a twenty-four stranded rope.
Ribbons have more sense than she does
“I am,” he says without remorse, his sharp jaw tight with tension. “But I’ll be the villain for you. Not to you.”
“I am no man.” “No. You’re more,” I agree. “Because no matter what I do, you cling to my skin and burrow into my conscience, and as angry as I am at you for that, I don’t want to lie to myself anymore. I am sick to death of repression. Of denial. Of holding back. After twenty damn years, I don’t want to tell myself no.”
Which is why I let that last wall tumble down when I look Slade in the eye and say, “You, Slade. I want you.”
“I’ve wanted you since the moment I laid eyes on you, Goldfinch. I was just waiting for you to catch up.”
“I want all of you,” he tells me, a newfound hunger in the depths of his green eyes that stirs heat beneath my skin. “Every piece, every memory, every minute, every inch. This isn’t going to be some casual dalliance. This isn’t going to be temporary. I want you soul, mind, and body. I want your trust and your thoughts. I want your past, your present, your future. So make very certain that you want me for the right reasons. Be certain that you’re choosing this, because once you do, there’s no turning back.”
