Page 36 of Cursed Shadows 1

Eamon’s mouth flattens. “The bad birth.”

That’s what they call it. The bad birth, when a babe survives the birth but just never gains the strength of a fae. They would make for good humans, but not fae. Fatigue, mind sorrow, pain in the joints, blood in the lungs, a sluggish mind like one lives in a cloud, and too much sleep when not fainting and seizing.

I have this wicked, horrible thought…

Daxeel is—or was—like no other dokkalf I’d ever met, ever known, ever imagined could exist. There was a soft spot that lived within him, back then at least, one that I was so lucky to experience. But then… is it because of Aleana that his soft spot exists? Did she create it?

Well, I took it, stole it for my own, then stomped on it…

He’s protective of her.

I’m suddenly aware of Eamon’s arm around me, of Daxeel’s earlier stare at his cousin, not exactly a friendly sort of look, but not totally unkind either.

“Are you protecting me?” I ask him and crane my neck back to get a good look at his beautiful face.

Beautiful. Daxeel is handsome, Eamon is beauty.

Daxeel is strong and rugged, Eamon is…gilded.

“Something like that.” Eamon’s smile is tight and forced; the tension behind it is what firms his muscles, has him all rigid against the wall, and his fingers still gripped too tight on my shoulder.

“Both Dax and Rune are competing,” he says. “And Samick, their friend, who should be around here somewhere. Caius, too.” Caius is Daxeel’s brother. I never met him. “So my mother and I were invited to watch over Aleana. Keep her safe here. Entertained, too.”

My face falls and my heart drops to my gut.

If he’s here for her, then when will I see him?

I’ll be alone. I need my Eamon. I need my raft against the waves—the one who grounds me, steadies me.

I almost sputter it out,no, no, no, but before I can, he adds, “I agreed, but only if that meant he wouldn’t kill you.”

My eyes widen. “He… What?” My lashes flutter, my head shakes slightly, but repetitively, and I think I must look stupid or knocked over the head. “What do you meankill? No.What?”

Whatever it is I’m trying to sputter out, I don’t quite know. I don’t find the words or manage string together the unwinding thoughts in my mind. My lips just keep parting and closing, parting and closing, over and over.

“At least not here at Comlar,” Eamon adds, with a sad smile, and I pale. “Not for the duration of the Sacrament. It is our bargain.”

A bargain.

He needed a bargain to protect me? Needed a bargain to stop Daxeel fromkillingme?

The reality of it is a blow to the gut.

I stagger back until his arm falls from my shoulder, and I should feel lighter without the weight, but I just feel heavy… so heavy. My spine connects with the stone wall.

Distantly, I’m aware of Eamon moving in front of me, speaking words I can’t hear over the buzzing in my ears, and also the touch of tears on my cheeks.

I cut him off, hardly hearing my own voice as I ask, “So that’s how he feels?”

Eamon’s face hardens. “Nari… What did you expect?”

A stir of nausea burns my throat. I swallow it back, my hands finding their way to my chest. There, between the naval dip of my plain white dress, my palms press firm against my raging heartbeat.

A shuddering breath escapes me. “I love him, Eamon. I never stopped loving him.”

“And I’m sure he loves you,” Eamon sighs and takes my shoulders in his firm grip, as if to steady me. “But what you did… Nari, that slight was one grave enough to end in bloodshed. Even I wouldn’t have walked away from that the way he did.”

I know it, too. It’s a truth, a harsh one, but one that even applies to our kind. The light fae. We offer more mercies than the dark fae, but how I shamed him, rejected him, so publicly, so cruelly—even a light fae would have cut me down for it.

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