Page 37 of War of Her Heart

I could spend the rest of my existence reading, and I would be okay with that.

Sebastian Kieran (I learned his last name in a book I read yesterday) would be the death of me.

It had been a couple of days since Calum and Nathara arrived back from searching for a place to honeymoon. They chose asmall island in the Ocean Realm because of its seclusion. Like I wanted to know that.

The only time I had left my chambers was to attend dinners to show my face. I know I said I wasn’t going to spend my days in my chambers any longer, but Sebastian ruined that. Well technically, he didn’t. My dreams were actually to blame.

The moment I closed my eyes, all I could see was him. All I could feel were his shadows creeping up my body. And all I could hear was him saying, “She’s mine.” Over and over and over again.

So in fear of this getting any worse—if that was even possible—I didn’t want to chance running into him while I was alone. So I stayed in my room, reading anything Yara chose to bring me.

Knocking on my door woke me from dreaming of Sebastian. Half asleep, I opened my door to see who could possibly want to see me at this hour of the night.

“Calum?” I pulled him into my room and checked the hall to make sure no one was around. “Is everything okay? Someone could have seen you.”

I was so confused. He always transferred to my room and yet he was standing in the hall like he wasn’t afraid of someone seeing us.

“Don’t worry. Everyone is asleep. I have something to show you.”

“What is it?”

“It’s outside,” he said as he grabbed my hand and tried to pull me towards the door with him.

“Are you sure no one will see us? What about the shadows?” Maybe Calum walking though the hall in the middle of the night didn’t look suspicious, but I knew me and Calum in the hall together would set off alarms in Sebastian.

He may not care about an alliance with the Mountain Realm, but he definitely didn’t want anything to risk Nathara leaving.

It terrified me to think of what he would do if he found out about me and Calum. He may have protected me the other night, but if I interfered with his plans, I might be his next kill.

“You’re right. Meet me past the garden in ten minutes.” Calum left using the door. It’s not like he didn’t ever use doors, but he’d only ever transferred in and out of my room to make sure no one saw him. He was getting way too comfortable.

I put on my coat, waited a few minutes, and left my room quietly.

The castle halls were eerily empty. Faeries in the Night Realm stayed up later into the night, but it was so late that no one was up. There could only be one reason Calum would risk us being together outside of my room. He must have found the object that was draining Sebastian of his powers.

I didn’t know what he had been doing from the time he left my room early this morning until now, but he really meant it when he said he was doing everything he could to find the object.

I walked through the gardens, finding it using only the light of the moon and stars in the night sky. Any other time, I would be terrified of being out in the dark by myself, but the idea that Calum had potentially found our way out of here kept me going further into the darkness.

We had to leave sooner rather than later. I had to get away from Sebastian. He had taken over every thought I had and all I could hope was that those thoughts would leave once I was out of his realm.

When I got past the gardens, I saw Calum facing the other direction, looking into the woods.

He must have heard me approaching because he said, “There you are. Come here.”

As I walked towards him, I watched as he turned to me and transformed into a tall, skinny black figure. A paramic. The thing Calum used to tell me about to scare me when we were faelings.A creature that shape shifted into someone familiar to lure their victims. Something straight from my nightmares.

I stood, frozen to my spot, while the creature closed the distance between us.

I turned to run but the paramic was standing in front of me again. I let out a partial scream before its long, skeletal fingers wrapped around my mouth stopping any further noise from escaping.

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