Page 53 of Cursed Shadows 2

His gaze is cut up at the moon that’s almost in the same position as when we left. We spent four hours in the human land, but here it was only an hour. Much of the night is leftover.

It takes me a beat to understand what Daxeel really means.More than the moon, he asks about the light. Could I live without thelight?

“I would miss it.” It’s all I say but my eyes don’t leave his unreadable face.

My answer is filtered for some reasons.

I don’t know why he asks. Is he curious, his mind wandering, or does he mean to offer me something someday?

Soon, his kind will leave our land. The Fae Eclipse ends in just some nights, less than a week now, and he will leave. He will take a piece of me with him. My heart, my soul. He’ll take too much.

And we will end this secret of ours.

Father will never let me visit my dark one. Father knows nothing of my love for Daxeel. It can never be. Not unless he offers me marriage—and it’s something that father would reject.

So how can I give a true answer to him when I know it can never be?

Wecan never be.

Not once he leaves.

So under the moonlight, in our final nights together, I pretend. I pretend with him that this love that’s a part of me now will have a future. It’s all that stops me from crumbling.

13

††††††

Daxeel’s scent is all over me.

A strong enough claim that, as I wander the corridors with Eamon, headed for the tower, I’m not oblivious to the lingering looks from the contenders we pass. Dark and light fae spare me glances, but it’s the dark males who linger their stare a little too long, who curl their lips in almost snarls.

I wonder how many of them know of my slight against Daxeel.

It was a great slight. So much so that I’d be surprised if it didn’t fuel like a blaze through their lands in gossip. Their outrage is palpable, I can almost taste it on the stairs I take.

Eamon picks up on it, too.

It’s why his hand rests on the small of my back as he escorts me up the steps. And I feel even safer with Rune ahead, because while we aren’t friends, I don’t have much doubt that he would defend me if it came to that.

But no dark male moves for me. They just sneer, letting their blatant distaste show in the once-overs they give me from blazing eyes.

All because Daxeel made a point of scenting me.

My early wash wasn’t all that thorough either.

It was a few minutes of dunking myself into the tub in the washroom, but nothing more than running a soapy cloth over myself. Not a scrub.

So I know I smell like I’ve been claimed as I lean into Eamon, as if to hide from the glares aimed my way.

Some steps ahead, Rune has Aleana by the waist and supports her weight as she climbs the stairs. She’s been weaker today, but I think that’s more her hangover after passing out in the Hall last Quiet than it is her sickness.

I study them, the way she leans into him, how his head is angled towards her—and how delicately his thumb brushes over her corseted waist as though to comfort her against the fierce, disdainful looks from the dokkalves.

It’s now that I see how isolated she is from her people, how they regard her like a disease of their kind. But also now that I see a tenderness in Rune as he keeps her weary pace, one step at a time, yet never huffs then throws her over his shoulder. He just helps.

A nudge against my arm tugs me out of my observations.

Glancing up at Eamon, a question in my eyes, I mouth ‘What?’

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