Page 109 of What did you do?

Being a shifter of such pure blood, Walter had a connection with me that was different than anything I could have with the others. Even if my animal powers were minuscule, it was like he could peer inside of me and feel what I felt, understand it. The connection I had to animals, the way I felt whole in their presence, like we were a part of each other—that’s how I always felt with Walter.

He cleared his throat. “Caly shouldn’t be at the castle now. I’m going to take her to the human realm to hide.”

“What?No,” I said with an angry look at Walter’s puppy-dog brown eyes.

I tried to pull my hand away, but he held it firm, giving me a stern look.

“You’re right,” said Eli. “It’s too dangerous for Caly to retrieve her heart with the queen still there. She’ll be out for blood and will try and destroy it before it falls into anyone else’s hands, including Caly’s.” The soon-to-be king turned around to face us, glancing at our clasped hands. “But she’s not leaving this realm. We will get my mother out of the castle while Caly waits in a safe location, and then she can come inside and get her heart.”

“Yeah, I don’t know how to tell you guys this,” I said as I tapped my pointer finger to my lips. “But I don’t take orders from either one of you.”

Eli scowled. “I will make certain your heart remains protected during the battle inside. I won’t let anything happen to it. I still believe I can release it from the flames somehow, and you are going to need it now more than ever with what is about to happen in Seelie. Being that we are tied, my soul flows through yours. If your heart is spelled only to release to you, it doesn’t make sense why I shouldn’t be able to collect it,” Eli said, a defeated look on his face, as if he had let me down. “If I cannot retrieve it for you, then I will at least protect it until you can get inside to it.”

The six of us continued down the hallway at a steady pace until Eli led us through a deep alcove and down a set of comically steep and windy stairs, the steps so small, only the very back of my heel could fit on each iron plank. This continued, all of us hustling down more stairs and more hallways, until it dawned on us.

“Where are the guards?” Edin asked, halting the group.

“I just assumed you guys took them out when you arrived?” I replied, looking between everyone’s frozen features.

“No, we assumed we got lucky and that they were all on another floor or something,” Walter corrected.

“They know we’re here,” Tarani hissed. “We have been?—”

“Listen,” Eli barked, tilting his head to the side, looking extra foxlike.

Distant rumbles and thuds were muffled down the hall, by the front doors of Malvar. Tarani gave a nod before Eden, Sid, and she left for another hallway.

Walter’s grip tightened painfully on my hand. “Go, now!” he shouted to Eli.

Eli’s eyes shot to Walter’s for a tense moment. “Please keep her safe. Do not leave Malvar until the guards reenter, and for sun’s sake, do not let her near the Seelie castle until it is cleared and I am king.”

“What is happening? Wait… I thought you needed me to be your queen? You can’t just leave me!” I shouted at Eli’s back as he ran down the hallway.

He stopped, whipping around to shout back, “Unlike Mendax, I do notneedyou to take the throne in order for me to become king. Ineedyou as my wife…it just so happens that makes you a queen.”

His words knocked the air from my lungs. When I reopened my eyes, Eli was at my face with golden wings spread wide.

“If I fail, and this is the last moment I get with you…” His eyes looked glassy. “I’m sorry for everything I did wrong, Calypso.” Tears streaked his lightly stubbled jaw. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you more in the human realm. I’ll never forgive myself for it. In every part of my soul, I am filled with remorse that I played a part in your sadness. I despise myself for being so selfish in wanting you with me, that I allowed her to send you to Unseelie in the first place.”

“Aurelius—”

“Please, Cal,” he muttered as his head dropped. “Do not leave me with that name.”

“Eli,” I whispered, finally understanding everything he was saying. “You are a fool to think you could have stopped me from going. I’m not sorry about any of it.”

I stepped into his hard chest and slid my hands up his tan neck until the tips of my fingers touched his pale hair. “In every way, you have proven yourself to be my hero and friend,” I said, looking between Eli and Walter. “I have already lost someone and their love by not embracing my own feelings. I may never get over the love I had for Mendax, but I will never make the mistake of not allowing myself to feel again. I love you, Eli.”

“As much as I hate to interrupt.…whatever it is that’s going on, we need to get out of here now,” Walter remarked.

“You aren’t leaving me in another realm while you fight. We willallgo to the castle together,” I argued.

“No,” both men replied at once.

Everyone gasped in surprise as the entire prison shook. The floor beneath us trembled like an earthquake, nearly knocking us all to the floor.

“Go!” Walter shouted at Eli with a stern look. “Help them!”

“Help who?” I yelled.

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