Page 11 of What did you do?

He squeezed tightly, and though something in my gut sent up warning flares, I relaxed into the hug. He felt so warm—almost too warm.

“Is there anything else you need to grab?” he asked.

Eli released me from the hug. The glittering gold feathers caught the light as he unfurled his right wing and began sweeping the shards of broken glass toward himself and away from me.

“I need to grab my sister.”

4

PRESENT DAY

Mendax

Rough, textured bark pressed into my back while I stood against the old tree, my body too large to be completely shadowed by the night, but it didn’t matter. I was the night. I was the darkest thing this human land would ever see.

A piece of hair fell into my eyes, darkening my view further. I didn’t raise my hand and brush it away though; I didn’t move. I couldn’t move. Instead, I watched her.

She moved quickly, placing items in a traveling satchel. I could feel her heart from where I stood, watching her through the windows of her human shack. The black hair that had fallen in my eye shifted to the side with a breeze filled with the earthy smell of a forest at night.

My eyes tracked every move she made, every wrinkle in her shirt, every nervous tap of her fingers. I would never miss another move Callie—or whatever her name was—made again.

A noise sounded behind me. I wanted to turn and look, but I couldn’t pry my eyes away from her. It didn’t matter anyway. I watched my only threat in this world.

A pop sounded from my jaw, and I felt the deep, grinding pressure of my teeth clenching when the golden fae entered the same room as her.

Turning my head to the side and closing my eyes for a beat, I pressed my ear to my shoulder and cracked my neck with a loud snap.

My body thrummed with the need to kill the Seelie for being in the same room. He had no idea how fortunate it was he was a SunTamer and I couldn’t impel his mind, because if I could, I would have decimated him.

The old gods thought they were being fair when they made the stronger powers infallible to each other.

A shiver of excitement ran over my skin as I imagined everything I would make him do had I been able to crawl inside his mind.

I listened as they talked.

He spoke differently to her. Gently, softly.

He called her Calypso, and I nearly laughed into the night at her brilliance. Giving me a misspelled nickname was smart. It wasn’t tied to her strongly enough for us to use, but it was close enough that when spoken, no one would have doubted her reaction to it. Calypso did not seem like a normal human name though—perhaps she’d lied to him as well.

I knew she was human. I had felt her broken heart in my hand.

I didn’t give a shit what her name was.

Minewas the only name she deserved.

She was clever, so she would realize she was only mine quickly.

Her eyes scanned the poorly lit room they stood in before grazing the window I watched from.

For a moment our eyes locked.

She saw only darkness, but holding her gaze for a moment caused my breath to halt in my chest.

She was a goddess.

Anger boiled under my skin as I watched her return to her tasks. It wasn’t anger that she had betrayed and lied to me the entirety of time I had kept her. No—I had known the moment I saw her that she was different, that she attempted to blanket a fire inside of her. I just hadn’t realized I would be drawn to it like a fucking moth to a flame. I wasn’t even angry that she had stabbed and tried to kill me…that shebelievedshecouldkill me. If anything, that made me want her more, made me want to set her darkness free and see what it could really do once its shackles had broken.

I gripped the tree so hard, flaky, pale wood crumpled, creating a divot where my hand had been.

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