Autumn Queens & Shadows by Wendy Heiss

Author:Wendy Heiss [Heiss, Wendy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: anonymous
Published: 2023-11-13T18:30:00+00:00

“What do we make?” I asked, holding up a pan that I most certainly had no idea how to use. Eren had done all the cooking back in White Bridge, I’d done most of the hunting.

“What do you want to eat?”

“Vanilla custard.” It was one of the things that always tasted better in Adriata. The milk and eggs came from far in Tenebrose and weren’t always the freshest, but Adriata was plentiful in that aspect.

His lip curled a little. “Then we make vanilla custard.”

“We can make something else. You used to hate sweet stuff.”

“I like you well enough,” he said, taking the pan from my hand and lowering it over a hob, mercifully letting me gawk at his back instead of directly at his face. “Get me eggs, sugar and flour. I’ll grab the milk and your vanilla.”

After giving him the ingredients, I also grabbed a little flowery apron and slung it around his tiny little man waist. “You know how to make it without a cookbook?”

After a quick amused glance over his shoulder at me, he said, “Driada used to spend a lot of her time down here before she got as ill as she was her last few years.”

A sudden quiet fell between us after that. The thing with Mal was, if he wanted to tell you something, he would. Even with me. Prying would only annoy him. If he’d made you pry, that meant he didn’t want you to know. When it came to Driada, even if I wanted to annoy him on purpose, I wouldn’t pry. Before, he’d usually tell me even about things he didn’t want me prying on. But after he’d returned from Isjord, he’d changed.

He languidly stirred the yolks into the milk so it didn’t curdle while I watched him from a safe distance. “Don’t leave me,” he rasped, and it took me a moment to shake the haze and grasp his words.

“I’m here.”

“You almost weren’t.”

No one but him had noticed every time I slipped away. He’d noticed even when I hadn’t. “It’s like we are playing house,” I said, languidly walking around him. “I’ve never had someone to play house with when I was little. Might as well take this off the list of things in my childhood I didn’t get to do.”

His eyes rose to me as I circled past him, watching me like a cat waiting to pounce on prey. “We aren’t playing. You’re my wife and this is one of our homes.”

His wife. “Fake wife, fake home, honey,” I said, reaching for two bowls overhead and struggling.

Before I’d resort to climbing up the shelves, Malik abandoned the stirring and lifted me around the waist, strong hands holding me up like I weighed only thoughts. He lingered a little after putting me down when he usually wouldn't hesitate to put space between us.

“There you are, Tiny,” he spoke in my ear before moving away.

“I could have gotten them myself.”

“I don’t take pleasure in watching you struggle.”

“Can’t say the same.”

There was

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