Page 8 of Bonded Ever After

I start driving, wiping away a tear I hadn’t even known had fallen. In my mind, a picture of Callum, a baby, and me in a happy home disappears like a picture being lit on fire. That was never going to happen, so it’s better to focus on my reality. There’s a party tonight. I’ll make sure Ferone is there, and then I can accomplish the first step of my plan.

It’s my only hope.

FIVE

Callum

I’m drunk again, at a party I don’t even want to be at, but anything’s better than being alone. I think I’ve been drunk every day since I found out Elora was sleeping with Ferone. I’m in a hell of my own making, and if I feel too much, I think I’ll just die. Just cease to exist.

Elora was my everything, my whole world, and I’ve lost her.

Worse yet, she seems not to care how I feel. How this has killed me. She wants us to talk together, as if what happens in Paradise Falls really doesn’t matter.Fuck that.

Why had I ever spoken those words that what happened here didn’t matter? Why the fuck hadn’t I made it clearer to her that I didn’t want her near anyone? That I owned her. That she was mine and mine alone.

“Hi, Stud,” some girl says as she drops into my lap.

I stare at her, not caring, not feeling, just wishing I could fade from existence. She smiles at me, drawing her face close to mine. Her big brown eyes are encircled by dark mascara that’s already begun to run. She smells like cheap vodka and cheap perfume, so strangely at odds with everything about Elora.

Another girl drops into the seat next to me. “So, like, when do you go to Neverwood? Soon, right?”

One week. One week until I’m alone with Elora in Neverwood.I’d already decided I wouldn’t be walking with her. Already decided that if Ferone was enough for her here, she wouldn’t have access to me, even if it killed both of us out there.

Still, the idea fills me with dread. If something actually happens to her… I push the thought aside even as an image of her hurt surfaces to my mind. I’d said the worst things I could possibly say to her, thinking I’d feel better if I hurt her too, but I didn’t. I felt worse.

There’s no end to my misery. No end to the hell I’m in. Before I touched Elora, there was some awareness in the back of my mind that I might be able to have her. Hope. Jagged hope that I could have something pure and wonderful in this life.

All of that is gone now.

“Are you looking forward to Neverwood?” the girl next to me prompts.

I take a swing from the bottle of vodka in my hand. “No.”

They giggle. They banter with each other, each one vying for my attention. I want to tell them to go away. That I have nothing to offer them. Before the night is over, I’ll be wasted, my dick too soft to do anything at all, but I don’t say that. I don’t tell them anything.

Music blasts from the stereo. Twenty-something-year-olds grind against each other in the living room while I sit frozen on the couch, watching it all unfold. The house is crowded. Everyone from the university squeezing in to have a little fun.Do any of them have a clue how pathetic this is?

Suddenly, my gaze lands on someone. Ferone. His dark hair has been styled. He’s wearing a dark green shirt and slacks, far too dressed up for a party. But I wonder if he’s actually dressed up for someone else.For Elora.

My gut tightens. Of course he is. He has her now, so he has no need for any other woman. When he can see her, touch her, slip inside her, his world is complete. He doesn’t need anything or anyone else to be happy because he has the woman I love.

I start to stand. The woman in my lap falls off. I clench the bottle of liquor in my hand and sway on my feet. I’m going to fucking kill him. And the thing is, no one will stop me. There will be no punishment. Because I’m the motherfucking Gold Keeper, and the only benefit to such a miserable job is that I can act without consequence.

I start toward him, and stagger in surprise when Teth suddenly steps in front of me. “Want to go outside and get some air?”

I try to push past him.

He grabs my shirt, pulling me so that he can whisper in my ear. “Let’s go outside.”

I shake my head. “No. I’m going to kill him.”

His grip only tightens. “I know. Let’s go outside. Let’s get some air.”

“No, I have to keep an eye on him.”

All I want is to beat the shit out of him. To know he won’t ever be capable of touching her again. I want to break him like he broke me.

Teth guides me back to the couch, and we sit down together. Tension radiates from Teth, and I don’t blame him. He wants to stop whatever disaster I’m planning, but he also knows he can’t. If I want to do something, there’s no force on earth that can stop me.

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