Page 118 of Dance of Thorns

I’m not prepared for the broken, haunted sound of her voice cracking behind me. I turn, and my face caves when I see the shattered, scared look on her face.

“Come here, little bird,” I murmur as I cross the distance between us and pull her into my arms. She chokes out a sob, clinging to the front of my shirt, burying herself against my chest.

“Something is wrong with me,” she chokes, trembling against me. “So fucking wrong.I get thoughts I can’t control,” she whimpers. “Do things I don’t understand. I blank out, and find myself somewhere else, and I don’t have any idea how I got there. There are like…” She shakes her head, going silent.

“Tell me,” I murmur.

”I—I can’t.”

I kiss the top of her head, my arms circling tighter around her.

“Yes, you can. You know you can.”

Her grip on my shirt tightens.

“There are chunks of time I can’t remember.”

Fuck.

This is worse that I thought. And it both breaks my heart and makes me furious—because I want to fix her, but I don’t know how.

I don’t know if Ican.

“I was with Evie and Brooklyn,” she says, more quietly. “And then suddenly it was hours later, and I was at my dad’s, in the carriage house.” She scowls. “Felicityfilled it with her fucking PetalGlow shit.”

My phone buzzes in my pocket. I ignore it as I touch my fingers to her chin and lift her gaze to mine.

“Well, there you go. It makes perfect sense.”

She frowns, and I grin.

“Of course you don’t remember how you got there. You got contact-high as shit from all those fucking essential oils.”

She chokes out a ragged giggle, smiling even as a tear trickles down her face. I wipe it away with a finger, ignoring my phone when it buzzes again in my pocket.

“Stop trying to cheer me up,” she mumbles.

“No can do, little bird,” I murmur as I kiss her forehead. “I married you, in case you forgot that, too, and cheering you up is part of the gig. So is reminding you that you aren’t crazy.”

That last part might be a lie. But if it is, it’s one I’m okay telling her right now.

My mouth lowers to hers, and slowly, with a tenderness that has me completely out of my depth, I kiss her.

My goddamn phone buzzesagain. I groan, pulling back from her.

“One sec.”

I turn away as I yank out my phone. “What?” I snap.

“Boss.”

Sergey’s voice is so tight the hairs on the nape of my neck crinkle.

“Bane…”

I whirl to the choked voice behind me. Her face is pale, lit by the glow of her phone, and her eyes are wide as they stare in horror at the screen before pulling to mine.

“Boss,” Sergey grunts again into my ear.