Page 8 of Cursed Shadows 2

Aleana is a diamond I stumbled upon.

She’s a friend, and it warms me that she sees me much the same. It saddens me a bit too, I won’t lie. How she must think of what could have been. If I’d been better to her brother, she would have me as a sister already. If fate didn’t impregnate Pandora, then Aleana would have more hope that I might come to be in her life after the Sacrament.

So I decide to go to her and tell hereverything.

And that’s just what I do when I find her on the floor, surrounded by scrolls and tomes. I drop down beside her, and though it’s her brother I tell her about, she doesn’t even flinch.

She doesn’t blanch, she doesn’t cringe—she listens, and by the intensity in her gaze, the more I tell her, the better I sense she has already started forming a plan.

This, all these secrets I’ve been keeping about me and Daxeel, this all along might have been the answer we looked for in scrolls.

Finally, when all the words have been said, I lean back against the bite of the bookshelf and slump with a sigh. Feel almost out of breath, like telling her everything—from the touches in the corridor to the moment on the tower and to the whore and his fae promise—was more exhausting than a dance.

Aleana wears a sharp glint to her gaze, all knowing. “A fae promise,” she starts, her mind spinning behind sharp eyes, “is as certain as the sun rising in your lands.”

Defeat deflates me. My shoulders sag with a sighed breath.

“It’s only certain if our darkness doesn’t invade your lands.” She winks, and it’s dazzling.

I frown. “So it’s certain… but not entirely?”

“It’s a true threat, an absolute promise for the way things are in the moment it’s said. But things change, and when they do, the promise changes, too.”

“And I can change things,” I decide with a nod, a nod that’s more for myself than Aleana.

For a beat, she chews on her bottom lip.

“You might not have to work too hard to change the promise,” she finally says. “Both in the corridor and on the tower, hescentedyou. Our males are… different to yours. Their animal side is stronger, and they feel a constant need to touch what is theirs in whatever way they can.”

“So him scenting me,” I start, mind working to catch up, “means he’s blocking other males—like Taroh—from touching me?”

She tucks a black lock of straight hair behind her pointed ear, sharp enough to cut glass. “He’s claimed you for all the garrison to know.”

That explains why Taroh hasn’t been around me for the past week.

I gave the thought of it away to the new strain on our arrangement with the Sacrament owning me, but it’s Daxeel. It’s all him, protecting me from Taroh’s unwanted advances.

And now that I do think on it, the memory of him stepping closer to me near the battle blocks, challenging Taroh with his stare and proximity alone—since then, Taroh has left me alone.

Aleana sighs a small breath, but it’s not one of sorrow or frustration, but rather hope and realization. “My brother is losing his battle to stay away from you.” Her smile darkens into something wicked and she tilts her head, looking up at me from beneath her lashes. “Nari, do you know whatevateis?”

For a beat, I’m still. I blink, then slowly, I let a nod tug at my head.

Evate is three things.

It is the moment a dark male first ever sees or smells a potential mate. It’s a moment of lust and rage, of the animal within stirred awake. The instincts storming within the male, to fuck, to kill; to maim, to kiss.

And it is more.

It is the female herself.

And it is the connection between the pair.

Evate is the experience, the mate,andthe bond.

A fate that exists for dark males.

I’m utterly still. “He had evate with me?” I whisper, my mind flickering to the time he first saw me, watched me dance, how he couldn’t look anywhere else but at me. “When he saw me dance that night, he experienced evate?”

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