Page 73 of Forsaken Secrets

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Eli

Istared at Kaiya, wide eyes pinched and hands clenched at her sides as waves crashed behind her. She was completely soaked and absolutely furious.

How Lynk had thought she'd just sit around waiting for him to solve the problem, I had no idea. Even I knew her better than that.

"What do you mean?" I asked. I'd seen the man in Solyn's memory, but he hadn't been familiar.

"He's Lady Ellingsworth's manservant. I'm sure of it." She strode to the edge of the water and stared out for a moment before looking back at me. "And do you know what was directly above those caverns?"

"Your house?" I asked.

She shook her head. "No. You see over there?"

I looked where she pointed. The ruins at the edge of her land were a few hundred feet to our right. We'd descended into the secret library from there. "That's the far-most right edge of our land, and how far do you think we traveled underground?"

"I — a good quarter-mile, at least."

She nodded. "Exactly. And everything for the three miles to the right of our land belongs to the Ellingsworths!"

Holy hells. She might have something. So what if it was, though? What could we really do?

"I know you hate them, but this is a big accusation. A dangerous accusation … and one I'm not sure we can even do anything with. At least not without endangering you or your aunt even more."

Kaiya's eyes glittered. "You SAW what they were doing down there, Eli. We can't let that continue!" She paced back to my side, wet boots squelching in the sand. "If I need to, I swear — I will sneak into that elaborate mansion, find them, and strangle them tonight — before they hurt any more of those vrytra. Who's to say they won't just send their men out in that submersible to gather more?"

"Well, that might be a little hard," I grinned and pulled a black iron capsule from my pocket. It being gone would make the submersible useless. At least for a few days.

She spun around, a huge smile lighting up her face, and my heart did a strange leap.

"You're absolutely brilliant, Eli!" she said, dancing in those wet leather pants that showed every single one of her curves. "I could just k — " her cheeks turned a bright pink.

The unsaid word hung between us and I stared at her lips. Were they as soft as they looked? What would they taste like?

Her tongue darted out to wet the bottom one and heat shot straight to my cock.

Fuck.

I adjusted my pants and forced a smile.

Friends. We were friends.

It was better to ignore the moment, no matter how much it killed me to do so.

My heart twisted, but I pushed away the feeling and forced a smile.

She tugged at her sopping wet hair. "You could feel the pain Lunei was in, too, right? We have to do something to stop them."

"Fair enough," I said, slipping my shirt over my head. "But did you see how powerful they were? Even Lynk was struggling to beat them. If we hadn't had that rod from the spryke cage, I don't see how we could have won."

I wrung the blue fabric out, the water dropping to the sparkling black sand beneath my boots.

"I — yes." Kaiya stammered. I glanced up to see her hazel eyes focused on my naked chest and grinned.

So she wasn't completely oblivious …

Finally, she shook her head and met my eyes. "You're right. But we can't just forget about them. They had twisted relics, wraiths, a fucking spryke, AND tainted body mages!"

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