Malice by Heather Walter (young adult books to read .txt) 📕

“Alyce. Please.”

A tremor goes through my whole body, starting at my feet and rocketing upward. Heat pools between my legs, an aching feeling of fullness I’ve never experienced. I want more of it. Want to let it break me and remake me new. And so, before I can lose my nerve, I wriggle free of the rest of my clothing, leaving nothing between me and Aurora. Sparks canter over the backs of my legs, my calves, the insides of my thighs.

My hands bury themselves in her hair, desire and longing and a dash of breathless anguish mixing together in a dizzying whirlpool of color. My head drops back as her lips and tongue discover places I never dreamed could feel so tender. And then she moans as her mouth finds somewhere entirely new, filling my whole body with a vibration that will shatter me.

The feeling intensifies, and I arch backward, bracing myself against the edge of a table. Aurora’s mouth moves quicker, tongue flicking against me, warm, wet heat traveling up the length of my body. My arms shake. Aurora grips the backs of my thighs. Sweat breaks over my chest and across my belly. And then, just when I want to beg her to stop, or to move faster, for the earth to yawn open and swallow me whole, my body goes rigid. An explosion begins where Aurora is inside of me, shooting through every fiber. Tingling in the roots of my hair. It is all I can do to sink to the floor, a limp puddle of soft bones and flaming skin.

—

We spend the rest of the long midnight hours wrapped in each other, ravenous. And with every shared heartbeat, I know that she is right—we are meant for each other. Two halves of the same whole, and I will not let my own uncertainty cleave us apart.

We don’t sleep until the night tinges gray, and even then it is only an hour, perhaps. Dawn is just blushing the warped windows when I startle awake, woken by the unfamiliar sensation of another breathing body beside me. The air is saturated with the smell of her—of our joining—and for the first time I feel that I am exactly where I am supposed to be.

Aurora rouses slowly, blinking against the early morning and tossing her mussed hair out of her face. She scoots closer to me on the rug, beneath the moth-eaten blanket we found to ward off the cold, and drapes a long, slender arm over my belly.

“Go back to sleep,” she mumbles.

“I don’t understand how you can sleep, knowing what’s coming.”

She sighs, still half in her dreams. “I’ll need my strength.”

I laugh and snuggle in next to her, burying my nose in the crook of her neck and smiling as I catch my own scent mingled with hers. Closing my eyes, I try to lull myself back to slumber, pushing away the worries that rear up in the light of day. The knowledge that I will have to face the king and queen, perhaps in a matter of hours. I want a few more blissful moments with her, while it’s just us, unsullied by the others.

A bell begins to ring in the distance. Then another, the tones clanging against one another and making the glass windows shudder. Aurora sits up, pulling the blanket around herself.

“What is it?” I don’t remember the last time the bells rang in Briar. Not these, the huge bronze beasts suspended in the palace belfry. There are alarm bells spread throughout the streets, the ones that summoned us to Narcisse’s trial. But those are sharp and brittle. These are deep and joyous, their calls rolling across the Grace District, all the way out to the sea.

“It’s the curse.” She stares up at the window as if watching the approach of an invading army. “They know it’s broken.”

Not two heartbeats later, a pounding rattles the library doors. Aurora is on her feet in an instant, pulling me with her, the blanket shielding us both. The massive, ancient doors heave open, and two guards clamor through, stone-faced and bleary-eyed.

“Your Highness.” The first of them, a huge, barrel-chested man with eyebrows that look like caterpillars, bows. He rises, discovers me, and his expression falls.

The other guard skids to a stop, looking from Aurora to me with unconcealed horror. Aurora wraps her arm tighter around my waist. Stands up straighter, daring them to say a word. And they must be well trained, for they do not. Only divert their eyes to the floor.

“Your presence is requested, Highness. In the throne room.”

“Leave us.” Though a little rough, the words are clear and sure. The voice of a queen.

The guards bow again, stiffly, and retreat.

Aurora turns to me. The amber-kissed dawn catches in her eyes, lighting them up like dragon’s fire. Apprehension simmers behind it, I think. The same kind that’s turned my guts into boiled nettles. But her grip is steady as she takes my hand. Squeezes.

“Are you ready?”

Absolutely not. But I nod, squeezing back, and begin to dress.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

To my surprise, the guards do not lead us through the main halls of the palace. Instead, we keep to the servants’ passages, taking enough twists and turns to leave me utterly disoriented. Aurora refuses to let go of me, even when the maids and footmen freeze in their duties, shock scrawled on their faces. Even when we’re ushered through the discreet back entrance of the throne room and herded in front of the waiting royal couple.

The chamber is nothing like it was during Narcisse’s trial, courtiers and Graces packed limb to limb. Even the servants are sparse, stationed with their backs turned at their posts. The air buzzes with an unnatural quiet.

“Aurora, my darling.” Queen Mariel launches from her throne, her gaze fixed on our joined hands like it’s a festering wound. She sweeps her daughter into a crushing embrace and I’m pushed to the side.