Page 117 of A Bolt of Magic

36

McColl

For a while, I am numb.

I stand frozen in the middle of the living room, staring at the door Kian walked out of, my mind struggling to process what just happened.

What was that?

How?

From holding each other all night to this.

That wasn’t him. That couldn’t have been him. And yet it was.

The cruel words he spoke, the cold indifference in his voice when he reduced what we shared to nothing more than “good sex” – that wasn’t my Kian. The fae who whispered my name when he moved inside me. Who looked at me like I was something precious and rare.

I felt it.

I felt him deep inside, and it wasn’t physical. It was more. So much more.

My chest feels hollow, scraped raw by his dismissal. The tears I’ve been trying to hold back finally spill over, leaving hot tracks down my cheeks that I angrily wipe away.

Did he need to be so cruel? So cold? Was that his way of making it easier for both of us? To burn every bridge so there would be no lingering feelings, no regrets?

But even as I try to rationalize his behavior, something inside me rebels against it. You can’t fake what happened between us. You just can’t fake that level of intimacy, that connection. The way magic literally erupted from our joined bodies, the way he looked at me afterwards like I’d given him the stars themselves. I’m sure he saw the same thing written in my eyes.

No. I wasn’t wrong about what we shared. I couldn’t have been. I was ready to tell him how I felt about him. Ready to beg him to take me with him.

Something is wrong.

Something is very wrong.

Something that made him feel like he had to hurt me to push me away.

To hell with that. The gods themselves be damned.

If Kian thinks he can speak to me like I’m some tavern wench he picked up for a quick tumble and then just walk away, he can go to hell. I deserve an explanation. I deserve to know what changed between this morning, when he held me like I was everything to him, and now, when he treated me like I was nothing.

What? Changed?

Something isn’t adding up. Something feels completely wrong with this picture. I’m going to find out right now.

I grab my cape from the chair and stride toward the door, my jaw set with determination. Whatever game he’s playing, whatever reason he has for acting like a stranger, he’s going toexplain himself, and it had better be good, or I will smite him down…so help me, goddess.

I yank open the front door, ready to chase him down, and freeze.

Lydia stands directly in front of the entrance, dressed in the dark green leathers and chainmail of the Children of the Veil. Her sword hangs at her side, and her face is grim with what looks like genuine regret.

“What are you doing here?” I look over her shoulder to the front yard and beyond.

My blood turns to ice as I take in the scene before me. Warriors surround the house. I count a multitude of them spread across the front yard and disappearing around the sides of the building. Some are dressed in mail, and others wear hooded capes. They are all dressed for battle, all watching me with the focused attention of predators. I even feel the gazes of the ones with their hoods up.

I frown. “Lydia?” My voice comes out smaller than I intended. “What…what’s going on?”

“Let’s go inside.”

“I don’t want to go inside. I have somewhere I need to be.” I look up the road, and there is no sign of Kian, even though he didn’t leave that long ago. “I need to go.”

---