Page 53 of Insolence (Eisha’s Hidden Codices #1)

Itissa

I ’ve barely been back in my rooms for ten minutes before a knock lands on my door.

I open it to find Sadrie pressing her lips together and digging her toe into the floor.

“Are you lost? Cordelia’s room is over there,” I say, pointing two doors down. “Same place as it always is.”

“Tiss,” her face crumbles, her eyebrows pinching together, “I was hoping we could talk about what happened.”

I cross my arms, as good as a slab of stone blocking my doorway. “Oh, you mean when you ignored my ‘stop’ and blamed me for it?”

“I— Yes.” She glances down the walkway in both directions. “Do you think I could come in?”

“I thought you didn’t want to be near me.”

“I was scared before. I needed time to sort through it all. What happened that night… it was bizarre ,” she whispers. “You said things to me, you know. When you, um, finished.”

For gods’ sakes . I stand aside, avoiding her gaze as she brushes past me.

“I didn’t say anything, Sadrie.” I follow her in and shut the door. “Not at that particular moment.”

“You did, though.” Her eyes dart around my sitting room before landing on me. “You told me I was yours. You said I belonged to you, but your lips weren’t moving. I heard your words just the same, inside my head. It was confusing, to say the least.”

Confusing. Right. Terrific. I fall back against the door, my breath coming in short bursts. I blink like an idiot, blindsided and remembering the fervent urges that came over me.

The yearning to claim her and mark her. Mine , I thought as my teeth clamped down on the crook of her neck. Mine.

Ice slithering down my spine, I wonder if that ugly bruise I gave her has faded yet. Likely not, seeing as she still wears high collars or kerchiefs around her neck every day. The same way I wear long sleeves to hide my miraculously healed arm.

“Tiss?” She’s standing too close when my head snaps up.

“All this time you’ve been avoiding me like I’m contagious ,” I snap.

“And now, all of a sudden, you want to talk again like nothing happened. And I suppose I’m meant to play along.

Pretend everything’s going to be fine because you’re paying me attention again, is that it?

” I clutch my chest, feeling like something’s shattered inside of me.

“Gods, I barely know you. Why does it feel like you broke my heart?”

Mouth trembling, she murmurs, “I’m so sorry, Tiss.”

“It doesn’t work like that. I can’t trust you anymore, and it feels like I’ve lost a lover and my very best friend.

” I push past her, tears lancing behind my eyes.

“It’s more than you giving me the silent treatment.

You violated me, Sadrie,” I say, whirling on her.

“I don’t care how irresistible you thought I was.

You ignored my no and took what you wanted anyway. ”

“Gods.” She clamps her fingers over her mouth, tears breaking free.

“I told you to stop. It shouldn’t have gone further than that. I wouldn’t have taken anything from you if you had respected that.”

“But I thought you enjoyed it,” she whispers through her fingers.

Gaahhh! Fire licks up my body, starting at my feet.

“It doesn’t matter that I enjoyed it! An orgasm is not consent, and neither was my claiming you when you gave me literally no other choice.

” The word slips out— claiming —before I can consider it.

“Only consent is consent,” I spit, remembering my conversation with Elodie.

“It should be enthusiastic and can be revoked at any time.”

Giving a choked sob, she backs up at my explosion, more tears washing her unfocused eyes. “You’re right. I didn’t realize.” She slides down the wall. “Gods, I’m horrible .”

Giving a low, guttural roar, I spin away, hands buried in my hair. That hideous, beastly anger is choking me again, clawing through me, cleaving me into unrecognizable fragments.

An image of the letter opener lodged in Elodie’s shoulder flashes through my mind, blood seeping into her shirt. It’s enough to jar me back from letting the monstrous outrage sweep me up entirely.

“Tiss”—my name comes softly, followed by shuddering gasps as Sadrie tries to force the next words past her sobs—“it k-kills me that I hurt you like that. I wouldn’t blame you if you never trusted me again.”

Nausea unspools through me. I drag in a bellyful of air. Breathe, Tiss. Fucking breathe .

But this room is suffocatingly small.

“I’m so ashamed that I’ve been ignoring you.

I was frightened by what happened and got overwhelmed.

Now I wish I’d talked to you about it—that’s what I came to say,” she snivels while I cross to the window.

“But I’m glad you said the rest of it, as hard as it was to hear.

I… didn’t realize how bad I was that night. ”

I reach past my desk to unlatch the windowpane, throwing it open.

“Afterward, I was so wrapped up in my shock and fear, I wasn’t thinking about how everything affected you. Thinking back on it, I hate that I… I forced myself on you. I could just be sick.”

“Get in line,” I mutter between gulps of bracing air. “For someone so adamant about protecting me from Elodie , of all people, you wasted no time hurting me worse than she ever did.”

I’m barely clinging to my self-control, but the smothering anger is loosening its hold over me. It no longer feels like my temper is raking me over blistering coals.

“You’re right,” she says pathetically. “There was never any excuse for continuing. I was only thinking of what I wanted, and you deserved so much better.”

At her words, my righteous anger splinters into chunks that begin to crumble away. Part of me is suddenly scrambling to hang onto them, and I snap, “Good of you to acknowledge it. Took you long enough.”

“Oh, Tiss. You don’t have to forgive me, but please just know I understand how wrong it was now. If I could change what I did, I would. I just— I can’t figure out what happened . It was as if I was under some sort of spell that night. I lost control, and it was awful of me.” Her sobs get bigger.

Light-headed from the heavy breathing with my raging temper somewhat subdued, I can’t help thinking she sounds like I did when I was apologizing my ass off to Elodie.

Gods be damned. My teeth gritting, fingertips digging into the chair back, I take another centering breath before I turn to her. “You shouldn’t have pushed me, Sadrie, but it’s complicated. There’s a reason you couldn’t control yourself.”

Huddled against my wall with her arms wrapped around her up-drawn knees, she lifts her head. “What reason?” Her voice is so small, so terribly fragile, that I’m moving toward her before I can stop myself.

How can part of me want to comfort her, of all things, when I’m still so angry and hurt and disappointed?

“When I’m strongly aroused,” I start, then drive myself to spit out the rest: “I give off chemical signals. Pheromones.”

“ Pheromones ?” she repeats. “Like how animals do?”

I sigh and sink to the floor in front of her. “Some women give them off too. Apparently, I’m one of them, and they seem to make me irresistible at times.” I tuck my feet under me, my emotions hovering between shame and indignation. “Arousal isn’t consent, but—”

“I know,” she nods, her eyes bloodshot and puffy. “I’m so sorry.”

“—but I should have told you about my pheromones beforehand so that you”— gods, I’m going to cry, too , I think, as the tears well up again—“so that you would have known what you were coming up against. You might have been able to restrain yourself better if you were aware.” A sob cracks my chest, and my hands go to my face.

“ Damn it,” I whisper, the depth and breadth of how deeply I might also have blundered things hitting me full force. “I should have given you the information you needed. It might have informed your decisions.”

“Doesn’t change the fact that I should have stopped,” she sniffles, her voice ragged from crying. “But that does explain things a bit.”

“I didn’t know the effect they’d have on you. Not like that… I’m only recently realizing how dangerous I am. Elodie told me I’m powerful.”

“I should say so,” snorts Sadrie wetly, blotting the tears from her cheeks with the backs of her hands.

“More powerful than the rest of you combined, it seems.”

“I believe it.” Sadrie shakes her head before letting it fall back on the plaster. Both arms are slung forward, wrists propped on her raised knees. “Gods, songbird, are we going to be able to get through this?”

“I don’t know,” I say, honestly. “I need time. And to go very slowly with you from here on out.”

“Absolutely,” she nods. “Whatever you need. But I want you to know that you’re part of the reason I feel like I belong here, Tiss. I’ve been so lost without you. It took me until yesterday to realize how empty I’ve felt ever since it happened.”

I’ve felt empty too . Warmth surges in my chest, perplexing but not unwelcome. I don’t know yet what the future holds, but a part of me wants to start over with her.

Well, want might be a strong word. But part of me is willing, at least.

“Ghisele said she caught you and Lady Elodie having lunch in the flower greenhouse a few weeks ago. And I saw you walking together from the Orrery Tower just now. Seems like you two have been spending time together lately.”

“We have been,” I nod. “I’m not entirely sure where things are going between us but—”

“They’re going somewhere ?” Sadrie finishes with a smile that transforms her face. “At long last?”

“Perhaps. Wait. Does that make you happy ?”

“Doesn’t it make you happy, songbird?” She tilts her head.

“It does.” I realize this is the first time I’ve let myself admit it.

“I adore you, Tiss. Although you’re terribly powerful, and your sex magic paralyzes me and echoes inside my head, you’re the most excruciating delight I can imagine.

” Her watery smile widens. “Regardless of what happens between us, I want you to be happy. And if she makes you happy right now, then my heart soars for you.”

A quick laugh bubbles out of me, my skin pulling taut beneath my drying tears. Deep down, some part of me longs for things between us to go back to the way they used to be, but I know they can’t.

As Sadrie and I sit on my floor together, both of us a little bit broken from wrecking the other, I think that while we can’t go back to how we once were, perhaps we can forge a new way forward. Slowly, mindfully, but together.