Queen Takes Rose (Wicked Villains 6)

He nods. “That’s for you to figure out. Take your time.”

“She won’t wait for me.” The words burst from my lips despite my having no intention of saying them.

He gives me a slow smile. “You might be surprised what Malone will do if given half a chance.” He glances at the door. “The moment you walk out there, you’re going to be set upon by Meg and Allecto. They’ve likely called in Tink as well.”

My chest warms, but even knowing that my friends are closing ranks around me in my time of need isn’t enough to do more than highlight the gaping hole where my heart should be. The feeling of missing something vital, something I need to go on. There’s been too much new information today, too many revelations. I don’t know what to think, can barely see the path in front of me.

But the thought of letting Malone go forever?

Can I do that?

I rub my chest and stare hard at the empty whiskey glass. “I’ve never felt the way I do when I’m with her. Not with anyone else. It’s not comfortable.”

“Love rarely is.” Hades pushes to his feet and gathers the glasses and bottle. “It has a habit of showing up when you least expect it, with the people you least expect it from.”

He’s talking about Hercules. The son of his old enemy. The man he seduced out of a desire for revenge and ended up falling in love with.

I look up at him. “If we both fell for our enemies, what does that make us? Really smart? Or really foolish?”

“Ah, Aurora.” Hades smiles. It’s warm and soft and changes his entire face. “It makes us very, very lucky.”

As he turns to walk to his desk, I pull out my phone. I stare at it a long time, my thumb hovering over the call button. In the end, I’m not quite as brave as I’d like to be, because I text her instead.

Me: I need time to think.

She doesn’t make me wait long for a response. I watch the three dots appear and disappear for several long minutes before her reply appears.

Malone: I would think you made your feelings perfectly clear.

Me: Did you mean it? When you said you cared about me?

Again, those three dots. I stare hard at them, my entire body tight with a heady combination of fear and something like euphoria. It feels like a free fall, but I don’t entirely hate it.

Malone: I meant it.

I exhale a shaky breath.

Me: Will you give me a chance to figure some things out?

Malone: I detest having these conversations on text. Come to me when you want to talk.

Me: Wait for me?

This reply takes longer, but when the message lights up, some of the weight I hadn’t realized I’ve been carrying slips from my shoulders.

Malone: I will.

I know myself well enough to know that I have to sit with this knowledge for a while. To let go of my fantasy about how things were and reconcile msyelf with the truth. It hurts to think of my mother as a monster but… Am I really that surprised? Didn’t part of me know all along? One doesn’t claw their way to power in Carver City with kindness. They don’t keep that power without strength.

I don’t know what it says about me that, even after all this, the person I want to go to so I can talk and get my thoughts in order is Malone. I want to fall into her arms and pour out all the poison I’ve been carrying for so long. I want her to comfort me in the way only she’s capable of, with pain and pleasure intertwined in an exquisite dance. I want to hold her while she whispers her fears to me in the darkness that puts us on equal footing.

I want Malone.

I suppose that makes me a monster, too, but I’m strangely okay with that.27MaloneI know better than to wish on stars. To hope for the impossible. No matter what Aurora texted me two weeks ago, she’s not coming back. She’s not going to change her mind. She doesn’t really care, and she’ll realize that once the haze of lust passes. How can she really care for me when I’m the one who put her mother in a coma? When I tore down the vision she’d built of the woman her mother was?

I should have kept my mouth shut. Should have simply taken her hate as my due and let her walk out of my life. But I’ve always been a selfish creature when it comes to the things I want, the people I want.

Damn it.

I scrub my hands over my face and reread the report in front of me for the fourth time. The words blur and swim across the page, incomprehensible. I curse and toss it onto the desk. This is a waste of time. I can’t concentrate. I haven’t been able to since she walked out of my life and took my fool heart with her.