day for the past month, I’ve slept in his bed and tried every password combination I could think of while he slept. I didn’t know what else to do—”
“Story.” Lottie gripped my forearm so tight it bruised.
I lifted my head, looking into earnest, warm brown eyes.
“What?”
“I know his password. He’s an idiot. He uses one password for everything, and like everyone else, he doesn’t think I’m paying attention.”
My mouth dried as blood rushed and pounded through my ears.
“It’s songbird,” she said, then shrugged like I don’t know why while inside I struggled to breathe.
Songbird.
I put my head in my hands. I would have never tried that, because the implication was too dark. That somewhere in his cold heart, West du Lac had a heart.
“Does that help?” she asked.
I nodded, because I still couldn’t breathe.
“Good. Every day I look at Grayson, at you, and I think of what I broke. You don’t… You probably won’t understand. You’ve probably never broken something so badly that you just stare at the shards and wonder how.”
I broke something priceless. I don’t expect you to believe me, but…I can’t live with myself if it ends this way.
The night I met Grayson and ruined everything, ruined them, flashed into my head.
“I have,” I said hoarsely.
“I want to fix it, Story. I don’t know how, but I need to fix it.”
It’d been months since I’d had any real moment with Grayson, just Grayson. There was so much I needed to tell him. I needed to know how he was doing—really doing. I needed to see him in person. I needed his sideways face.
I would risk anything.
I looked at her. Her hair was down, her curls soft and springy. I bet the guards couldn’t tell the difference between us.
If she gave me her pajamas…
“I shouldn’t ask it of you,” I said.
“Whatever it is you want me to do, I’ll do it,” she said. “I’ll do anything.”
GRAY
I left West passed out in the sand, a part of me wishing it was colder and he’d freeze to death. I walked past four servants carrying some massive metal abomination for the baby shower in the morning.
It looked like a fucking metal pumpkin.
Forget today’s shitshow, there’s no rest for the wicked. Literally.
On my way up to my wing, I nearly ran right into the triplets. We said nothing to one another. I should have fucking talked to them. How would that go? How did one end an entire lifetime of silence?
Now back in my wing, I couldn’t stop seeing Story’s face.
Her quiet stoicism that all at once enraged and enthralled me. She isn’t fucking fine. I know it, because as Story’s insides were gutted and bled across all of page six, I kept reading her letters.
Dear Atlas,
I miss you fucking me. I miss you going hard. I miss the bruises you’d leave.
You’re so gentle now, but I have a brutal fantasy.
I want you to take it.
I don’t want you to ask for permission.
I want you to rip him out of me. Rip the vines and tear out the thorns until we’re both bloody and there is no trace of him.
What is wrong with me?
I didn’t think anything was wrong with her, but something is definitely wrong with me. If she wasn’t pregnant with my child I would do exactly what she wanted.
I would take it.
I wouldn’t ask.
I’d rip out the piece of West twisting her apart.
A creak sounded and I shoved the phone behind my back, like a peeping Tom caught in the window. No matter how much work my mother put into Crowne Hall, it was still centuries old, the bones creaking.
A shadow stood near my stairs. I stood up, trying to see who had come into my wing. Lottie stood in her white silk pajamas. Why the hell was she here?
“Lottie?”
She was spectral in the moonlight, the salt breeze billowing wild, curly hair—hair like—
“Atlas.”
Forty-Six
STORY
Grayson’s phone slipped from his hand, falling to the hardwood with a clack. He rushed down the stairs to me, pulling me close but stopping so he could study me.
Everything about me.
Then he slammed his lips against mine, his kiss wine, getting my soul drunk.
“How?” he breathed against my lips, but he didn’t let me respond, kissing me again, biting at my bottom lip.
Only after he’d had his fill with me, could I tell him. “Lottie traded places with me.”
He laughed. “This is so fucked up, Snitch.”
“It was the only way I could see you. I needed to see you. I can’t stay past ten…” Past the