Page 35 of Of Sockets Of Stitches (Unworldly City #4)

I was not desperate and hopeless in romance, and never would be, because there was a great reason that I felt such surety of surviving further betrayals from See. Because I was only desperate and hopeful for the survival of monsters. That was my lens of looking at every choice now.

Monsters came first.

We must come second.

So we would betray each other time and again. Whether ten days went between betrayals, or centuries. There would never be another moment like the one we shared in this chamber on that night .

But what remained could be informed and towering and powerful. If we employed irrational belief in each other’s loyalty and radical forgiveness. If we believed in the shared thumping of our hearts.

Was I convincing myself of what I also yearned for?

Yes.

Did I fear?

Yes.

But if See was correct about this lesson we both learned, then this first betrayal would sting the most. Like anything in monsterdom—power, or connection, or knowledge of self—the beginnings were abrupt and uncomfortable.

The endings, sure and hard-earned. Now I was grateful for the beginnings that had come before.

Because I understood how new things presented to a queen. Romance, the most abrupt and uncomfortable beginning of all.

A tidal wave rumbled in me, a decision of my heart both preordained and unprecedented.

The tidal wave towered high, and I stood before it and under it in the full knowledge of how the weight of water would soon crash upon my head and then rip at the world.

I blinked, then peered up at See. I lifted a hand to his face, and he stilled under my touch.

His breath hitched.

Such hope in his eyes.

My heart beat in tandem with his—a mindless and infinite pulse. Ancients must possess a sense of humor, for they sent a message in this as they did in all. I must be mindless and infinite in romance. And See in return.

That was our fate.

I forgive you.

I did not speak the words aloud. I must practice them silently a few times. I forgive you, I thought again .

He nodded in encouragement, sensing the three words that I did not say. “Please speak the words, my darkness.”

And more irony, for I had begged him to say three words, and now he was begging me for three words too.

I parted my lips. “See?—”

Pounding footsteps speared through See’s princedom, and I jerked my hand away from See’s face, only for See to snatch it back, a growl ripping from him.

I stared at his grip, then at him. He was white-lipped, jaw clenching, and unbreathing.

See closed his eyes and released me. For we came second.

I met my pawns at the door. “What has happened?”

Gangrel, Sanguine, and Vassal were all fang. Which was to say they were smiling widely.

Sanguine was the most collected of them, as usual. He sheathed his spear, bowing low. “My queen, the champion, the uh marshal, the uh Princess Take sent us. Her king, her uh husband, her uh…”

I rolled my hand in the air.

He blurted, “Has returned! He has returned from the haze.”

They parted ways as I marched forward. “What is his state?”

“Whatever do you mean, my queen?” inquired Gangrel.

More the fool me for asking a pawn for discernment. I settled into an impossibly fast blur through Vitale, leaped over the gleaming and vicious points of my picket, and then my wall of bars.

The cobblestones rattled with the suddenness of my arrest in the courtyard.

“ Where are they?” I called on the air.

I craned to listen and noted Princess Take’s light laughter from her chamber. Surely not.

Surely they would not sacrifice everything for lust. I leaped and blinked and burst through the doorway of her quarters on the second level .

Take sat in an armchair as far from his princess as possible.

Grime covered him from head to foot, though I had certainly appeared worse upon returning from the haze.

Stubble shadowed his jaw, and there was the oddest, new masculinity in Take where only boyishness had ever resided.

His toenails, always so thick and curved remained black from cuticle to tip, but were snapped short.

Such mysteries of a journey through the haze.

“Pawns delivered news of your return, sir. How did you fare in the haze?” I asked. I could not miss the joy between them.

I could not miss that their clothes were on.

Take exhaled. “How does anyone fare there? I have returned.”

And that was all a monster could achieve in the haze. The only monster who had walked into haze and not returned from his own merits was King No Change, excluding Princess Bring in her infancy, of course. She had not entered the haze of her own accord either.

“So you have,” I replied. “What did you learn, sir?”

He said calmly, more calmly and with less forced delight than ever, “I learned that punishing myself for an impossible choice arose from weakness of character. The impossible choice is but an anchor, and I might still float where I like, unchanged in morality and free of doubt.”

Ah. “Your insights refresh a queen, sir. Greatly refresh.”

Take crossed to his princess, and extended his hand. She took it and rose to stand by his side.

Take said, “My queen, we have agreed to celibacy for the space of one year to better know each other.”

My brows climbed and I schooled them down. “Indeed.”

“A blink in time, but a long gaze in diversity of feeling,” said the princess.

A smile came quick to my lips. “My heart is glad for an easing of the turmoil between you. ”

Because they were my monsters. Because the world needed this of them.

Take straightened. “I was maddened by lust before, but I stand before you with my priorities in proper order. What is to be my role in supporting you?”

I barely recognized this version of him. No doubt he would continue to improve my tolerance often, but this mature monster was something to behold.

“Sir, I welcome you, a great monster, to support me in queendom always. You exist in purpose to grow your power. You exist to stabilize and strengthen my reign. You are the Marquis Take.” I smiled at his princess. “And you, my champion and marshal. Formally, you will be known as Marchioness Take.”

She curtsied low, tears in her eyes. We had not always liked each other, and yet she now possessed everything ever yearned for— all the parts of her husband’s love.

My marquis bowed deeply. “I am your marquis, my queen, and happily. Thank you for understanding the worst of me, so that I could find the best of me.”

“You are welcome, sir. Return to your previous kingdom, now known as your march. Go about in purpose. Heed my call. For there is something about the true nature of monsters that niggles at me more and more. If we can save the world, then the world will not look the same after.”

I stood aside as the marquis and marchioness strolled from the chamber, hand in hand. I peered over the balustrade to watch them pass across the courtyard and beyond.

From the dawn lit stairs drifted a musing voice. “So Take has forgiven himself.”

See lurked there, watching me as I watched monsters.

I joined him. “So he has, and dawn came and went long ago. ’Tis past time for rest.”

So much had almost happened between us in his princedom. So much of nothing. I should have spoken the three words .

I forgive you.

For those three simple words that could not be uttered on the stairwell. The feeling we had built in his bed chamber did not fill me now. The knowledge and choice, yes. But the feeling…

See gestured up the stairs. “A queen requires rest to connect all she must. There is still daylight to slumber away,” he said quietly.

Painfully.

For he had been so close to hearing three simple words.

I held out my hand. “I will be glad for it. I must make sense of the bizarre shifts in Marquis Take.”

My words had covered somewhat of See’s sharp inhale at me asking for his hand. He wrapped his large fingers around mine, and my hand was quickly lost in the enormity of his.

His thin lips curved. “Sense of the new version of Take? That will surely take longer to connect than a single day.”

Soft laughter startled from me, and See’s heart skipped a beat at the sound.

I replied, “Until dusk at least, sir. Perhaps longer.”

We walked to my private quarters in silence. We walked through the larger lounge in a tighter silence, and then entered the smaller one in the tightest silence of all.

In the doorway to my bedchamber, I paused with a hammering heart that he felt in his chest.

“The couch is terribly small for the largest monster in existence.” I looked into his milky gaze.

“Terribly,” he whispered. “But I will occupy it happily to exist by you.”

I swallowed hard against… everything. “I would have you exist by me in comfort when possible. You are welcome to pass the day in my bed.”

As the words passed my lips, I rather got the sense that the moisture in See’s ancient and milky gaze was the closest he would ever come to tears. Such emotion in him stole me of breath.

“You honor me, my darkness,” he said hoarsely, bowing slightly. “May the impossibilities be few and far between so that I might often slumber at your side.”