Page 26 of Faerie Fate
A girl could hope.
Yet now my hopes were dashed, absolutely and irrevocably destroyed.
Mike dropped his hand from me to scrub his face again, wiping the expression off his features. Fury trembled through him and turned his once soft hold to iron. “He hurt you?”
“He had Nurse Julie heal me before I died.”
I wasn’t weak enough to reach for him. To pull him back to me and force him to hug me when his disgust was right there in the open. Disgusted with me, of course, because I was broken. Undesirable.
I was bound to an enemy and there was no coming back from it.
I nodded, more to myself than to him, resolved to the twisting dynamics between me and Mike. “Apparently I might be scarred for life, but at least I’m alive,” I hurried to say.
“Are you in pain, Tavi?”
“Not anymore.” But how could I tell him about the tether I always felt? The one binding me to Kendrick even in a different time? Like a serpent coiled around my heart, ready to crush it to dust.
Mike glanced sharply away, sucking in a breath. His profile was gilded by sunlight but the distance between us was back. “Fuck.”
“Fuckis an understatement.”
He snorted. “This really isn’t the time for jokes.”
I knew how it felt, every time this happened, knew the next steps weren’t going to be easy because I’d crave the closeness again. But things had changed. How could they not? How could Mike not be absolutely sickened by me now?
A different set of iron chains slowly clanked down to the pit that opened up inside of me. I locked my knees together to keep standing when Mike casually brushed me to the side. My spine flattened against the stone wall as he took out the key from around his neck.
“Come on,” he said, pointedly not looking at me. “Let’s go back to Faerie.”
He thrust the key into the open air opposite us, the hallways now blissfully empty.
One last bell rang in the distance to signify the start of the next class and Mike twisted the key. The glowing gold outline of the door shone, mingling with the specks of dust in the sunlight. The other side of the door showed the basement of the elite academy.
He held the portal open for me and I stepped through first, my insides turning to lead.
He closed the door behind us. “It’s still two weeks in the past. I brought us to the basement of the Elite Academy.”
It was empty outside of the dust and stacks of crates of supplies. The magic of this world filtered over me and the exhaustion, the dizziness, abated bit by bit. Not all the way, of course. I’d never be normal again until the blood disease from the zombie bite was healed by a witch.
And Barbara was dead, even two weeks in the past. I didn’t know any other witches.
Mike pulled his key free and tucked the chain underneath his cloak. He held out a hand for me to take, still staring in the opposite direction. “I’ll take us forward from here,” he directed.
His features twisted in another flash of disgust, probably at the thought of me having to touch him again. I hiccupped but refused to say a word.
How did I even begin to defend myself against a mate bond I hadn’t wanted? One I’d tried to reject?
Frustration had me slapping my palm into Mike’s extra hard. He gripped me with equal tightness and closed his eyes.
Here, his magic was a softer wave but equally intense. It came naturally and crashed over us, the same familiar feeling of rootedness churning my stomach.
Mike brought us forward to our time. The basement changed, the world speeding around us, and suddenly Melia stood a few paces in front of me. Her golden eyes widened in surprise, her lips an unnaturally thin line striking across her dark features.
“Oh my god! There you are.” She rushed for me and pulled up short, her fingers falling in the open air. “Hey?—”
Bronwen strode forward, Coral at her side, my cousin paler than I ever remembered seeing her before. And the basement…the basement was full.
My breath caught in my lungs at the sight of so many teachers and students from the mortal world.
