Page 71 of Cursed Shadows 5

Unless…

The understanding strikes hard enough that I almost flinch before him.

Daxeel loves me outside of the bond.

He loves me as more than his evate.

I learn that now, and I see it as I look into the agony swimming in his ocean eyes.

I don’t know why it hurts me to realise this, but it does. It angers me just as much.

I consider the brokenness of the male before me, the dark circles around his eyes, the stains of what I suspect is black powder on his fingertips.

I offer him a truth. “You aren’t well.”

I know it.

He does, too.

He just has too much shame to hold my stare for more than a heartbeat, so he turns his gaze to the rotten floorboards between us.

“You should leave.” I run him over with my stare, lingering over the bruises on his knuckles and the blood grimed under his fingernails. “It is late.”

He gives a faint nod.

Still, he does not look at me. His gaze remains dropped to the floorboards as he reaches into the pocket of his breeches.

“You are losing weight.” That murmur is followed by the gentle touch of a coin pouch deposited onto the kitchen bench. “Eat.”

Without another word, he’s gone.

The draught from the door disturbs me.

I shove it shut behind him.

The breath I release comes out in awhoosh. I slump against the door, forehead on the wood.

And I stay like that for a while.

It’s only when the rustling sound comes from the netted bags abandoned on the floor that I draw away from the door.

I swerve a cautious look at the pup—the pup buried in the bags, rifling through all the starchy vegetables to find the good stuff. The good stuff being low quality cuts from the butchers down the lane.

I loosen another heaving breath before I drop to a crouch.

The pup stills, head buried in the bag, butt stuck up in the air, a stiff tail that warns me of nerves.

“Hedda.” I am not soft spoken in the way I address the faerie hound. I tell her off for digging through my bags.

The miniature beast worms out of the bag and lifts its curious face to mine.

“Hedda,” I echo, this time soft, this time with a smile. I reach out my hands. “Come here.”

I doubt she knows the command yet, but she knows the warmth I offer.

She pounces, big paws thumping on the floorboards, long legs flicking at all angles and no coordination, and a pink tongue flopped out the side of her mouth like a ribbon.

I scoop her into my arms and hold her to my chest.

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