Page 21 of Winds of Ruin
Elsedora leveled me with a droll glare. “Such high praise.”
She wore a fitted emerald velvet dress and had pulled her typically wild auburn locks into a neat bun. The fabric hugged her shoulders, and the neckline plunged between her…
Ugh.
I shouldn’tnoticeher body that way. If she caught me, she’d turn my ears red with a lewd statement and be far too amused by it.
I tore my eyes upward—luckily, she was fixated on her bitten nails.
“You know I mean it. Why else would I choose you as my only confidante?” I pressed.
She scoffed. “I was youronlychoice.” El threw her legs over the armrest of the chair, getting comfortable. The slit of the dress put her long legs on display as the velvet pooled at her hips. To say I didn’t wonder how it would feel to slide my hand up her thigh would make me a liar.
“Fair enough. How are you faring this week?” I corrected my gaze from her legs, too.
Torturous woman had laid herself out like a model in a sultry painting.
Lust had no place between us. She wasn’t doing anything indecent, and I loathed myself for the attraction; it wasn’t proper.
When I met her gaze, she smirked. “I saw that. Do you want me to put on a private show for you?”
Yes,I almost answered.
Her hand trailed up her leg with painful slowness, pulling at the fabric, as it traveled toward her core.
My cheeks heated. I prayed for my humility, that my body, out there, didn’t react. The last two times I’d allowed myself physical connections with a friend had gone tragically. Elsedora had become the one solid thing I possessed—sullying that would make me a fool.
She was the most forward woman I’d ever met, knowing precisely how to distract me and guard her heart from my question.
“Stop trying to turn me to putty, Else. That doesn’t work on me,” I lied. “And I’m being serious. I worry about you.”
“Oh, it would work eventually, pet,” she cooed.
I would not blush twice. “If it is Lark’s birthday, then that means next week…”
I didn’t have to finish the sentence before El’s face turned steely and she said, “We don’t need to talk about that.” She waved her hand, but the sadness had already crept into her hazel eyes, dimming their usual shimmer.
Caym was quiet tonight. He hadn’t tried to claw at me or pull me into the shadows. It made me uneasy.
The weight of his fury pressed heavier upon me. My plight through thick, cloying amber fog to reach my parents’ orElsedora’s voices grew harder. Each day felt like it may be the last.
Without their visits, he’d destroy me.
“We don’t need to, but do youwantto talk about it?”
She sighed, righting herself and then pitching forward on her elbows. “Maybe I should want to, puppy. The first few years were easy. You remember—I buried the pain in a bottle of liquor and an illicit affair with a bored married couple, or a traveling performer, or a barmaid, whatever seemed fun that year.”
I hummed in acknowledgment; I’d worried about her then, too. “What’s changed?”
Elsedora always had a penchant for stirring herself a tonic of trouble. Often in the wrong places at the wrong times, she rarely avoided debauchery. Hearing her downtrodden, second-guessing herself, caused my chest to ache.
“Maybe I’ve changed. Centuries have passed; the people I love have families of their own, duties of their own, paths onward. I once felt so firm in my ways. Lately, I’m feeling more untethered than usual.”
Her trusting me with the truth made my chest puff, honored to be the person she could lean on despite hating the frown that erased the dimples in her cheeks.
I’d sink to her level of teasing to win a smile.
I smirked. “Isn’t that the way you like things? Untethered? Admit it, you miss bedding the married couples and jugglers.”
