Page 93 of Queen of Legends and Lies
I roll my head on the plush pillow until I’m facing Sterling. Sleeping on his back, with his dark lashes shut and his full lips slightly parted, he looks so peaceful. The faint scar on his jawline is barely visible under a day’s worth of stubble. Love swells in my chest as I ponder our journey together, from enemies to soulmates. We’ve come so far.
A kaleidoscope of memories from this tumultuous year flashes behind my eyes. Our first meeting when I smacked into him. The relentless training. Everything I saw and heard. The time I saw him comforting Celeste. That other time when I witnessed him flirting with her to evoke my jealousy.
Wait.
I shift onto my side to face Sterling fully, propping my head on my hand. I reach out with my other hand and skim my knuckles over his cheek. He doesn’t stir, so I gently shake him.
“What do you think of Celeste?”
Sterling grunts, face scrunching as he struggles to wake. “Mmph, I thought we talked about this a long time ago. I was never interested in her. You know that.” He drapes a muscular arm around my shoulders and tugs me down to his chest.
I laugh and brace myself, resisting his pull. “No, not that. I mean…her. As a person.”
His warm brown eyes finally open, the gold flecks quivering as he regards me with a small frown. “What do you mean? Why are you asking?”
There’s something about the woman that doesn’t sit right with me. An unsettling intuition that she’s not who or what she seems.
Hopefully this line of inquiry doesn’t paint me as a jealous bitch.
“I’ve been thinking about it a lot lately, and I can see how Celeste, under the guise of helpfulness, is always trying to stir up trouble. Everything she advocates for fails. Everything she counsels against seems like it could’ve succeeded. That kind of track record is suspicious.”
Sterling pushes himself up to lean against the ornate headboard, all traces of sleepiness gone. “What?”
“I mean, I hope I’m wrong. She was a good instructor at Flighthaven. But since her arrival, something about her has just been, I don’t know, off. Different from the Celeste Dawson who was my weapons instructor.”
For a beat, Sterling doesn’t say a word. Then he sighs. “Okay.”
I raise an eyebrow at him. “Okay as in you agree with me?”
He merely nods.
“So what do we do?”
“Nothing yet.” Sterling puts a finger to my lips when I open my mouth to protest. “Not without proof. But we’ll watch her closely.”
I swat his hand away, shooting him a glare that he knows I don’t mean. “But what if she really is up to something, and we’re just sitting back and allowing it?”
“Then we’ll catch her and deal with it.” He twirls a lock of my hair around his finger. “Don’t look at me like that.”
“Like what?”
He gives my hair a gentle yank before releasing it. “Like you want to storm into her room and go full queen badass bitch on her, proof be damned.”
I can’t help but smile because Sterling knows me so well. “I kind ofdowant to go full queen badass bitch on her, but I guess you’re right. We should keep an eye on her.”
“Of course I’m right.”
“Cocky, are we?” I give his chest a playful shove.
He grins. “Violent, are we?”
“Don’t even try to pretend you don’t like it when I’m violent.”
The gleam in his eyes is downright wicked. “Why don’t you show me just how violent you can be?”
My pulse gallops, heat building in my core at his suggestion. “I hope you know what you’re asking for. Because?—”
“No more talking, love.” He yanks me to him and kisses me with ferocity. “We need to practice merging soon, and I don’t want to waste a single second on chatting when we could be doing plenty of other stuff.”
