Thaddeous returned with two bottles of wine and a pair of glasses in his hands. He placed his load on the side table and poured them both a cupful. He handed one to Jade before he sat on the chair next to her bed and took a sip from his. She watched him drink before she did so herself. He smiled when he noticed her watching him and she bounced her eyes.<\/p>\n
Thaddeous returned with two bottles of wine and a pair of glasses in his hands. He placed his load on the side table and poured them both a cupful. He handed one to Jade before he sat on the chair next to her bed and took a sip from his. She watched him drink before she did so herself. He smiled when he noticed her watching him and she bounced her eyes.<\/p>\n
\u201cDo you have nightmares a lot?\u201d He asked.<\/p>\n
\u201cYes.\u201d She took a sip of her wine.<\/p>\n
\u201cAre they usually that bad?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re usually worse.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cDo you ever get any sleep?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNo.\u201d<\/p>\n
It was all she could do to keep her responses short. She wanted to tell him everything. Wanted to tell him about the nightmare she had, tell him the horror of turning into the one woman whom she hated and pitied. She almost did, since that calculating look behind his eyes had faded into nonexistence. Maybe she was safe with him. Perhaps he didn\u2019t want to use her knowledge against those she loved the most.<\/p>\n
She let her mind wander as he spoke the various jobs forced upon him by his father, doing her best to harden herself against him and throw those thoughts aside. He was the enemy. He could not be trusted. She busied herself with drinking. He matched her, laughing about how much she could tolerate. A flush hit his cheeks and did not leave.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis has to be the best moment in my life, though,\u201d Thaddeous said, grinning. \u201cSpending the night drinking with the most amazing woman in the world.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jade froze and stared at him as he drank from his glass. He seemed unaware of what he just said. It had to be some sort of ploy. This was a calculated move\u2014it had to be. Right?<\/p>\n
His blood-shot eyes did not hold malice, however. They looked at her with delighted surprise.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m beating you now, Jade!\u201d He raised his glass, snickering. \u201cIf you\u2019re not careful, I\u2019m going to dethrone you!\u201d<\/p>\n
Jade tilted her head curiously, uncaring about his challenge. \u201cWhat did you just say?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re going to lose,\u201d he cooed.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo, before that.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOh.\u201d He grabbed the back of his neck and laughed. \u201cThat you\u2019re the most amazing woman in the world? I meant to say galaxy, but it doesn\u2019t roll off the tongue as well.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou don\u2019t know me.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI do!\u201d He insisted. \u201cWeren\u2019t you listening? I read up a lot about you and, Vix, you\u2019re amazing! The way you\u2019ve managed to survive things that should\u2019ve killed you, how you survived your run-in with A\u2019doxia, how you managed to build all those robotic creatures to battle us back! It\u2019s incredible!\u201d He spread his hands out to emphasize his words, spilling his wine on his arm. He didn\u2019t notice. He grinned widely at her. She couldn\u2019t help but smile back.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd your eyes! They make you even more special and amazing than you are now. Greens are amazing. Did you know that Vix has green eyes? At least, we<\/em> think so. Why else would he create such amazing people?\u201d<\/p>\n She stared at him. Amazing? Her eyes, the things she had to hide from her own people lest they hang her, were amazing?<\/em> A laugh bubbled up in her throat and exploded from her mouth.<\/p>\n Amazing. She was\u2026amazing.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Thaddeous returned with two bottles of wine and a pair of glasses in his hands. He placed his load on the side table and poured them both a cupful. He handed one to Jade before he sat on the chair next to her bed and took a sip from his….<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":[]},"categories":[197],"tags":[29,26,72,129,130,158,13,157,12,68,92,69,14,114,60,97,37,133],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/s27tjX-amazing","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/winter-publishing.com\/welcome-to-winter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/990"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/winter-publishing.com\/welcome-to-winter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/winter-publishing.com\/welcome-to-winter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/winter-publishing.com\/welcome-to-winter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/winter-publishing.com\/welcome-to-winter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=990"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/winter-publishing.com\/welcome-to-winter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/990\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1239,"href":"https:\/\/winter-publishing.com\/welcome-to-winter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/990\/revisions\/1239"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/winter-publishing.com\/welcome-to-winter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=990"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/winter-publishing.com\/welcome-to-winter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=990"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/winter-publishing.com\/welcome-to-winter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=990"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}