Page 115 of A Fate of Ice and Lies
His eyes dulled, and as he released Victoria, he swallowed. “It’s nothing.” He pressed two fingers to his cheek, and the scratch disappeared although blood still stained where it had been. “Are you hurt? Javier?”
I lied when I shook my head, not wanting him to worry more than he already did.
“Right, well.” With a bow of his head, he ran a hand through his dark hair, stopping when he saw the gash on my shoulder. He lifted a hand toward my shoulder but stopped, closing his hand into a fist a few inches from me.
“It’s okay if you don’t want to heal it.” I swallowed past the anguish that collected in my throat. Past the rejection that made my insides flare in pain far greater than the cut on my shoulder.
“Don’twantto heal it?” The pain that swam behind his eyes seemed endless. “All I want is to keep you safe. See youhappy and alive.” The tears that brimmed in his eyes made the violet more vibrant. “Don’t ever doubt that.”
I ran the back of my hand under my eye to catch the tears that fell. His pain intensified as he took each drop in.
“Will you heal my shoulder?” I asked quietly.
His hand shook when he raised it to my shoulder, but the warmth of his skin on me was a balm to my soul. His magic buzzed around me, in me, so that the burning of my shoulder sharpened until it faded away.
When I peered back at my shoulder, not only was the gash gone but also the blood.
I bit my bottom lip. “There was another tree-like monster by the trees over there.” I pointed at where I’d seen it. “I could feel it watching me, could feel it wanted to hurt me, but it never attacked.”
“It’s called a lirio,” he said. “They’re another breed of faerie that lives in the forest.”
I shuddered in a breath. “This. . . Leanora, the nyxx and lirio—none of it is a coincidence, is it? They’re all here for me. That’s why she’s been coming to me. She’s angry with me about something. In my last dream, she called me a traitor.” I ran my hands over my chilled arms.
I tried to forget the slow, torturous way she’d killed Elias.
He pulled another blanket from his magical pocket and gave it to me. I tucked it around my shoulders.
“I won’t let her or anyone else harm you.”
“She wants you dead,” I whispered. “I saw how she wants to kill you.” I could still hear the echoes of his screams in my head. “Promise me you’ll be careful, Elias.”
He eyed me curiously and seemed to consider my words.
“I won’t let anyone harm you,” he repeated.
I knew that. Even when he was lost behind those blackeyes, he still came to protect me. But what about him? Would he do the same for himself?
Once Ryenne,Donnie, and Nate arrived after the girls had been put to bed, I told them and Javier about my dream journals. About how Elias, Nalari, and the other fae had been reading them and trying to figure out where she was.
While they discussed everything I’d told them, I slipped outside to where Nalari lay in an open field. I gave her a piece of raw meat that she swallowed without chewing.
“Is he all right?”I asked her.
She huffed.
“You know I care for him,”I added for what felt like the hundredth time.
She could hear my thoughts and feel my emotions. She knew exactly how I felt for him.
“I know how he feels for you as well,”she said.“I feel his pain as if it were my own.”
I hissed in a breath through clamped teeth. When she shifted her body away from me, I headed back to my front porch, where Ryenne waited for me.
“Thanks for staying and watching over me although I’m sure you hate me,”I told her.
“I could never hate you when I feel the magnitude of his love for you,”she said.
He loved me?
