Page 146 of Insolence
“I won’t be seeing you again after this.” She says it softly. Gently. As if she isn’t stripping the flesh from my bones. “I can’t risk it.”
Again the peregrine flashes through my mind.Gods.This is what the poor creature was trying to warn me about.
Horror on top of horror splits the already fragile fracture lines, breaking me to pieces. Rending me completely apart. “But I love you, Tiss. Please. Tell me there’s a way we can stay together.” When she doesn’t answer, doesn’t say “I love you” back, I yank out a chair. Drop into it.
Put my head in my hands.
Her expensive glass earrings clack, telling me she’s shaking her head. She teases her fingers through the short hair at my nape and clicks her tongue.
The stimulation rankles every nerve in my body. Only minutes ago, she was running her hands through my hair with abandon as she worked herself to ecstasy between my legs.
“El, I need to leave now.”
“No,” I blurt, tearing my hands from my face. “You can’t— Tiss, please. It’s too sudden.”
She looks miserable for roughly half a second. Then a coolly indifferent mask drops over her visage. “I’ve stayed too long as it is, and I can’t risk being found here. I’m likely being followed, even now.”
My stomach genuinely considers evicting its contents. I’m reeling, struggling to process. Refusing to accept the glaring truth—this is farewell.
“Tiss, please. Don’t choose him over me.Pleasedon’t leave me.” I’m blubbering now. Clutching at her blouse, her arms, and pleading like a wretch. “I don’t think I canlivewithout you! Do you think you can live without me?”
“The decision’s already been made,” she repeats, her expression ruthlessly blank.
I’ve seen the shift in her demeanor many times. She’s who I adopted the tactic from, after all. During the course of our romance, she’s always directed it at other people. At threats. Until now.
“What about our tie?”
“El, stop.”
I shoot to my feet. “You and I, webelongto each other. How can you forsake that? How can you forsakeme?” Suddenly, the world is coming apart at the seams.I’mcoming apart at the seams. Wrecked with the thought of facing down the one thing I’ve always feared.
“Let mego.” She’s prising my hands from her arms but not using her full strength against me. Not yet.
“Never.” I shake my head. Tighten my grip. “Nobody can give you what we have. Nobody else will ever—”
“I saidstop it, El!” She overpowers me, yanking her arms away with such effortless force the buttons tear from one silk sleeve. Bounce across the kitchen floor before I realize she’s broken my hold.
“What can he p-possibly give you that’s enticing enough to k-keep you from me?” I choke between wracking sobs.
“I really am sorry,” she murmurs, agony shuttling between us. “This is how things have to be. We always knew it was inevitable.”
Not inevitable. Possible, sure, but…The word digs into my heart with barbed hooks. She strides to the door, snatches her cloak, and pauses. Studies me with a remorseful sort of appraisal. “Love is sacrifice, sweetheart. And you didn’t need to make this one so damneddifficult.”
She exits my family’s house. Leaves me in tattered pieces, ruined and slumped at my kitchen table. Staring at three pearl buttons on the floor.
And that’s not even the worst part.
The worst fucking part of it all—the part that will haunt me—is the wave after wave of misery I feel spilling down the arcane thread strung between us.
Elodie
Morday, the 12th of Emberglow
Approximately 1.5 Months Ago
“You’re the one she wants. She won’t divulge much to any of the rest of us. You had best come along now.”
Merciful Eisha. Goddess preserve us both.
