Page 193 of The Fae Girl 1

I couldn’t stand here. I couldn’t hear anymore.

My magic swelled. My heart seemed to rip in two. I stepped back, stumbled, and Nela put her hand out to grab me but I flinched away.

I didn’t want to be touched right now.

I didn’t want anyone near me.

Fain stormed out the room and as our eyes met he stopped dead in his tracks.

“Alice.”

I shook my head.

He stepped towards me and I lashed out, sending enough magic to push him back.

“Wait.” He yelled but I was already turning, already racing away from him.

“You utter fool.” Nela said before sprinting to follow me.

Ididn’t look about me. I didn’t pay attention. I just ran. I could feel it, my magic, and my anger, and all my emotions, swirling inside me like a bomb about to go off.

I needed to get space. I needed to get away from the castle. Away from everyone before I lost control.

“Alice.”

Nela’s voice carried behind but I didn’t stop. I just kept going, even as the tears streamed down.

It had been a trick. The whole thing.

He’d played me. Lied. Seduced me into believing there was something. That I’d meant something.

My heart twisted, my soul twisted too. How had I been so stupid? How had I not seen it?

He’d called me manipulative. He’d called me so many things. And yet I’d let it all pass, forgotten it all the minute he’d said he cared. God was I that starved for attention, that pathetically needy that I’d just swooned at that?

I guess I was.

A wail escaped me. I wiped away tears but more streamed down my face.

I really was just an object. Just a thing to use.

I could feel him, the Prince, reaching out, calling to me in my head. Using the magic I’d so willingly bestowed on him.

I screamed back. I cursed him.

But he continued on as if he was trying to explain himself. As if there was any explanation for what he’d done.

My footsteps echoed off the stone as I ran. Nela’s footsteps echoed behind me.

I didn’t want to stop because I knew when I did I’d have to face her. Have to look her in the eyes and see that same sympathy she had. That same pained expression at how I was treated and yet she wasn’t helping me, she was as much my jailor as all the rest of them.

I gasped crying harder.

How the hell could I have been so stupid? How the hell had I let myself be used like that? Let them all deceive me?

And yet he’d been so convincing. He’d seemed so genuine. He’d played me so well I hadn’t even stopped to consider it, stopped to think that maybe, just maybe he was acting on his brother’s orders.

Because why else would he want to fuck me? Why else would anyone want me? No one in this world had ever seen me as me, why the hell did I think that had suddenly changed?

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