Page 82 of Cursed Shadows 2

The smile that touches Daxeel’s lips, lips that still taste of her, is bitter. “She is the most vexing, selfish female I’ve ever had the displeasure of knowing. Her claws live under my skin. I eat, sleep,breatheher haunting existence—and I’m certain she only exists to torment me. Yes, I love her. I have since I met her. I love her to the bottom of my heart, but I loathe her to the pits of my soul.”

Samick sighs a sound so icy and small not many would pick up on it, the sound of an icicle forming on a cave wall. Disappointment edges through the room, and it’s mildly surprising that the golden chandelier above Samick doesn’t freeze over.

“Through the bond,” Dax starts, “she’ll be a second anchor. It has an undeniable advantage for the first passage.”

“An advantage you have been rejecting for a month.” Samick’s eyes flash. “Now it’s suddenly an opportunity worth having? What changed?”

Dax turns his cheek and looks at the doorway.

From the upper levels, there is movement, the hushed creak of a door, soft slippers on carpet. Aleana is getting up.

“Nothing has changed.” Daxeel’s tone hardens with hisstony expression. “I’ll do what I must when the time comes.”

And that cuts it off because Aleana’s uneasy, fatigued steps start down the stairs.

Daxeel dismisses the ache in his chest as not for Nari, but one for his sister. Pity for her that she’s misguided in her adoration for Nari. Shame that she doesn’t know of the plan.

“You should rest,” he says to Samick.

“I slept some hours last week.”

Dark ones need less rest than any of the fae, but Samick even less so. He’s different. And for it, most dark males are ill at ease around him. Daxeel was one of them, four decades ago when they first met at the barracks. Forty years… such little time, and so much can happen, so much can change.

“The first passage is tomorrow,” Daxeel says as Aleana comes in, and her bare face is striking in its ashy tone.

Apparently she hasn’t even had the energy to change out of her clammy cotton nightdress, the black material still clinging to damp patches of her body.

Ignoring the now-cold, congealed morke eggs, Daxeel adds, “The more sleep you have, the better.”

Samick says nothing but keeps working on the star sketches.

Aleana slumps into the sofa not a moment before Tris has abandoned the wall she stands at, and she sets to catering to his sickly sister. She prepares coffee, butters toasted bread, and sets out a row of tonics.

Aleana meets his gaze. Her smile is tight, forced, and her eyes circled in darkness, like she wears bruises. Traces of blood are dotted at the corner of her mouth, telling of a violent fit she lazily wiped away.

“Where’s Rune?” she asks and keeps her tone light, but it just sounds frail.

Daxeel’s eyes narrow on her.

She ignores him and downs a cloudy tonic first, the white powder mixed with tepid water. Stinks of stagnant puddles and rainwater.

Scratching charcoal over thick parchment, Samick says, “Left for Comlar already.” If there is a reason why, Samickdoesn’t share it beyond the fleeting look he throws at Aleana.

Her shoulders slump slightly. “Oh.”

Daxeel keeps his ice stare on her. He only tears it away when the front door shudders with a knock. It must be a familiar fae, because no slave has a moment to answer it before the creak of the door shudders through the house—and it opens for the visitor on its own.

A hush falls over the lounge.

Samick stiffens at the table.

Daxeel slits his gaze on the arched entrance to the lounge, lacquered cerulean and gold.

Both listen for footsteps, for a familiar heartbeat, for the recognizable sound of a voice. None comes—and so they know exactly who it is moving through the house as silent as a ghost.

Aleana is the only one who has to look to know it’s Dare, and the second he steps into the room, her fatigued smile brightens just a tad more, as much as her wilted self can afford.

Dare’s tall, slender frame moves with lethal precision, even when he’s only pausing in the doorway and running a bloodied hand through his thick head of dark curls.

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