Page 36 of What did you do?

“Because my mother banished me from the human realm! Do you have any idea what happens when you disobey a faerie queen, Caly? Death! Do you think she’d show mercy just because I am her son?” He was gripping my shoulders tighter now, and I fought the girlish urge to slap him or, worse, the assassin’s urge to suffocate him with the fluffy pillow that brushed against my thigh.

“Queen Saracen would neverkill you, Aurelius. Especially just for going to see me,” I replied with a wavering voice.

His expression suddenly softened. His hands slid down my arms, and he clenched his jaw with a pained expression. “No. She would have forced you to kill me,” he whispered. “The simple fact that you don’t even realize that means you don’t know her as well as you think you do.”

“You have no idea what I know about her,” I snapped back, fighting the urge to grab the pillow.

Smoke had begun to fill the space between us, and for once I was thankful for the charcoal smog. I wanted to hide beneath its dark mask. I didn’t want to cry in front of him anymore than I already had. Maybe I was delusional, but the smoke from the fire now had the most calming scent I’d ever inhaled. I wanted to bury myself in it and hide. It was a shame my own smoke couldn’t smell like this. It never smelled like anything.

“Fuck. This is not how I wanted your first days in Seelie to be.” He rubbed his hands down his face in frustration, absently swatting at the thick smoke between us. “This was too much, I’m sorry. The healer will be in shortly to check on you. I think I’d better go so you can rest. This entire wing is yours. Get some rest, and feel free to roam it whenever you like.”

10

PRESENT DAY

Caly

My nerves danced a thousand tiny pirouettes. Tingles erupted across my skin. The eerie sensation of invisible fingertips ghosted over the sensitive skin on the backs of my thighs and knees. I groggily turned my head to the side, shoving the pillow off my face where it nearly blocked my air. Was that the sheets making that sound?

I groaned, adjusting the pillow over my head once again to dull the bloodred glow that poured from the windows. The light abruptly shifted, and a large black shadow dropped over the bed. Flinging the pillow off my head with a gasp, my eyes darted to the window directly in front of the bed.

My breathing stopped.

Pressed against the window was the silhouette of a man. A very large, broad-shouldered man.

I bolted up from the bed, reaching for my glasses with the blades hidden in the temples on the nightstand, only to realize all of my weapons were still in my bag in the bathroom.Feeling the familiar hum of exhilaration, I moved for the nearest weapon.

Of course I had nothing nearby in this luxurious, pampered space but a small bottle of linen spray that had somehow escaped my earlier destruction. At best, my attacker would end up smelling like freshly tumbled sheets.

Fuck!

I grabbed it; maybe the ethyl or isopropyl alcohol would at least cause bleeding in the stomach and intestines. I needed to be better prepared than this.

As soon as I turned back to the window, the large silhouette was gone and back was the eerie red glow of the sun.

What the fuck? Was I seeing things?

I was seven stories up in a heavily protected, royal castle. Nothing should be hovering outside of this window.

I shook myself, remembering I was no longer in the human realm. Something winged could be hovering outside of my window; in fact, it could have been a royal guard for that matter.

I raced to the opposite window, scented weapon in hand, and checked.

They would have expected me to go to the other window to look for them, so I at least had a better chance of seeing someone hiding from this side.

Nothing but the warm red sun blanketing the flower-speckled fields and turning what looked to be a sea off in the distance a bloody-gold color. A few dark birds, maybe crows, took off from one of the turrets overhead.

I tried to convince myself that was all it had been—a bird.

After thoroughly checking the room, I grabbed the squishy comforter off the bed and hung it over the window by carefully wedging a few corners. I would work on getting better curtains made, but this would have to work until then. I could barely sleep with a crack of light under the door at home, let alone thecreepy, red sun pouring in. Granted it was closer to a murky glow than a full sunset, but I needed it as dark as my tainted soul when I slept.

I let out a sigh so deep, it seemed to rise from my toes as I crawled back onto the bed and under the cool, white sheets. I shivered with the lack of a blanket, but the newfound darkness quickly lulled me to sleep—a sleep so deep I dreamt the wildest things imaginable. Like so many times in the last few weeks, I let myself fall deeper and deeper into the paradisiac dreams ofhim.

In this unconscious state, no one could reprimand me, no one could make me do a thing I didn’t want to. I didn’t have to be the betrayer. I wasn’t forced to be a different person.

I was just me, and he was just Malum.

Deep in my wondrous dream, a powerful hand flattened on my hip. A warm, sharp jaw pushed into the crook of my neck as I inhaled the clean, masculine scent of him so close. My mind burrowed into the dream, savoring every sensation.

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