Page 110 of A Fate of Ice and Lies
Rather than heal my ankle, I let the pain move me forward. With a wave of my hand, I materialized my sword and ran for the hydra.
“Do you have a death wish?”Nalari’s anger trembled through me.
I dove beneath the monstrous creature, and as it blew white fume from his nostrils, I sliced beneath its underbelly.Blisters formed wherever the fumes and blood touched. I ignored the sudden burning on my face and hand and instead plunged the knife into one of its necks.
It screamed. When its poisonous blood spilled from its wounds to my cheek, I smiled. Because I could live with this kind of pain.
“You were toying with them!”Nalari growled in my head as I ate my supper in silence.
While Nalari continued griping, my other friends took the hint and remained quiet.
“I will not continue taking you hunting if you do not stop this foolishness,”she continued.
Whatever Brenton had cooked was tasteless. It was nourishment, though, which was all it needed to be so I chewed it and washed it down with water.
“Are you seriously going to get yourself killed over some belligerent human?”
I pounded my fists hard on the table, making the plates shake. As my friends backed away from the table, I shot up to my feet and grabbed my chair to throw against the wall. I reined that rage in, my limbs trembling with the effort of not throwing the chair. The wood beneath my hands began to crack before it sizzled and turned to ash.
Brenton hissed something I couldn’t hear, but his smirk fell at my warning glare.
Everly traced a finger over her pointed ear that had reshaped once I returned her magic to her. “Elias.” She took acareful step toward me, but George gripped her arm and held her back.
Good. I didn’t want any of them near me.
“Talk to us,” she pleaded. “We’re your friends.”
I bared my canines at her and growled when George stepped protectively in front of her.
My rigid shoulders threatened to fall forward. This was what I had become. A snarling asshole whose friends needed protection from.
On a sigh, Everly stepped to George’s side while he maintained a defensive position, ready to strike me if I threatened Everly.
“We’re here whenever you’re ready,” Everly offered, her voice smaller than it should’ve been.
I thundered out of the house, slamming the front door hard enough the whole cottage shook. Brenton followed, opening and closing the door with much more care.
I needed to hunt, to kill. To protect.
It was all I was good for anymore.
Brenton gripped my arm, his expression hard. “You want to do something productive? Something to keep Teddy safe?” He paused, and when I remained quiet, he said, “Tell us about the journals you’ve read. Let’s try to figure this out together.”
His offer quieted the blood roaring in my head. Made my primal instincts simmer, but I tried to hold on to them, not wanting to open myself to feel the pain that waited for me.
Although fleeting, the time I’d had with Teddy had been a dream. Now, without her, my soul withered. I held the tiny moments we’d shared, though.
You are too, too good for this world, Elias.
She’d said those words to me once and had meant them. But then she’d learned the type ofmonsterI actually was.
“Inside.” I jutted my chin toward our cottage as I tried to grip onto my primal instincts that seemed to slip away the more I thought about Teddy. “Nalari,” I called out. She and I had already discussed what I’d read in the first journal but not the second.
From her pasture, I heard her flap her wings. By the time I went into our cottage and closed the door, she landed on the clearing in front of our home.
I went back to the kitchen, where Everly and George stared at the table. When I took a seat, George held his breath.
“I think whatever’s going on here with Teddy and Leanora, what Leanora is communicating to Teddy is true. It differs from what we learned, but I believe Leanora is telling the truth. I can’t explain it, but there’s soul magic at play herethroughTeddy.”
