Page 84 of Cursed Shadows 5

“What does your fate whisper to you now?”

“Significance.”

A frown knits Eamon’s honeyed face.

“No direction, no strategy—not even a reassurance that I will have her in my grip soon. I sit here, in her scent, amongst her things… and Iknowthere is significance here.”

“It might be significant for you to know,” Eamon starts with a sigh, “that Bee is fierce in her protection of her friend.”

Dare considers him. “You?”

Eamon shakes his head. A loose braid drags over the groove of his shoulder. “Tesni.” He gestures to the messy bedchamber. “IfTesni is with Bee, then Bee will be doing everything she can to protect her.”

“That’s leverage.”

“That’srisk. I promise you, Tesni is Bee’s soul sister. She is so protective of her thatIhave never met her.”

Dare’s silent question is a tugged brow.

“Tesni is apparently something of a vicious human,” Eamon tells him. “Vicious in her words, enough that she might get herself in trouble with fae. And Bee thinks she is of sensitive mind, that she—” he quotes his fingers “—can’t handleit, the exposure to our kind.”

“Perhaps that is where my revenge lies,” Dare muses, resting his temple on the window frame. “Kill Bee’s friend, win the game.”

Eamon’s eyes flash. “You didn’t come this far because you thirst for revenge. I know it, you know it… even Nari knows it.”

Dare’s jaw tenses.

“Is it thisfatethat draws you to her?”

“I believe it’s the reason I came along that night to the human realm… I almost didn’t. But I did… and I saw that painting ofeye-screamon the wall… I knew to follow it.”

Eamon sinks into the chair. “And it was at the ice cream shop we decided to drink… and so I called Bee.”

Dare considers the ceiling, as though it is all the puzzle pieces he needs. He sorts his thoughts aloud, “She is beautiful and lovely. I was drawn to her… but there was more than that.Significance. I can’t find the secret in it, no matter how hard I look, the source of the niggle escapes me over and over.”

Eamon just considers him.

“It’s as though something else was supposed to happen…” Dare takes a beat to chew on the inside of his cheek, bite down on his own flesh in contemplation. “But it failed—and I am left stumbling around waiting for the chance to come again.”

“The chance at what?”

“I don’t know…” Dare’s voice is soft, a whisper, his eyes as sharp as blades. “But I will. Fate calls me and I follow. I will find your kinta—and return her, alive. And in doing that, fate will deliver me to what I am meant to find, it will take me to the secret… whatever secret that is.”

“What if…”

Dare lifts his gilded gaze to him, thick lashes bordering the silent stare threaded with warning.

Eamon’s invasive question is predictable: “What if Bee… is evate or even mate?”

“Hardly a handful of litalves have mates,” Dare scoffs and turns his cheek to him. “And I am only half dokkalf… there might be no other soul for me.”

“But her name,” Eamon says, careful.

Dare is quiet for a beat. Then, “Did you know?”

“Yes.”

“And you kept it from me?”

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