Page 180 of Midnights
“Do it,” I challenge, stepping just close enough to let the air between us tighten. “Unless you’re scared.”
There's a glint of something deadly in his eyes, and I dare him to actually go find one. I could throw a knife in my sleep, and watching the look on hisface when I prove it would be the perfect cherry on top of an already fantastic evening.
“Confident, aren’t you?” He teases. That damn smile is doing exactly what it does best. Looking cocky, and sexy as hell.
“Well, you know what they say…” I trail off, my grin turning sharper.
He stops, looking at me. “No, I don’t. Care to enlighten me?”
Shit, I don’t actually have a follow-up for that.
I roll my eyes. “Honestly, I just figured you’d nod along and pretend you knew what I was talking about.”
His laughter rumbles low and he looks at me with a heat that feels entirely too dangerous, like it’s wrapping around me.
“Who are you?” The words land low and rough, crawling under my skin before I can shove them out. The way he says it feels like he’s pulling me in, unraveling me without even trying.
“Who areyou?” I fire back, tilting my chin up, letting the challenge slip into my voice like armor.
He doesn’t look away and neither do I. “Touché.”
The moment should end there, but it doesn’t. The question lingers, heavier than it should be. Because the truth is, I don’t even know how to answer him. Ever since I lost my grandfather, it feels like pieces of me have been scattered, slipping through my fingers. Like the person I thought I was has been left behind somewhere and now I'm just an outline, blurred and incomplete.
Of course, I'm heartbroken that they're gone. But I’m left with so many questions.
I can’t even answer the most basic things. Like how my parents died, where they were born, how old they were. And now, with that chest, those letters, and everything that’s happening lately, it’s like someone handed me a puzzle with half the pieces missing. And now, there’s no one left to ask. No one left to guide me. And that’s the part that cuts the deepest.
The emotions coil tight in my chest, threatening to drag me under, and I don’t want to drown in them. I need to move.
I look away and round the corner, letting my hands graze over the leaves. That’s when I see the broken pot still lying on the ground.
I bend down, picking up one of the larger shards, and everything shifts.
Warmth wraps around me, and the scent of lavender and old books fills my lungs, pulling me into something I shouldn’t be able to step into.
Chapter 29
So it Goes...
Raven
"What story do you want to hear tonight, my little bird?”
Her voice is soft and warm like the blankets tucked under my chin.
“The magic poem!”
I sit up, letting the excitement bubble in my chest. But her gentle hands ease me back down. Her fingers start gliding through my hair, working through the tangles of the day.
“Shhh, lay back down,” she murmurs, her presence as familiar as the stars outside my window.
Her voice dips into a low whisper and she starts where she always does. She tells the story like it's a secret just for the two of us.
“Once, there was a king who was always grumpy.”
I giggle, like I do every time she tells this one.
“Some say it was because he didn’t have a woman to love,” she continues, her tone playful.
