Page 16 of A Fate of Ice and Lies
“I want to go home.” She sniffled. “To Ryenne and tacos and fictional boyfriends.”
I stared at her shoes and clenched my fists beside me. “I’m sorry, Teddy. I never meant to hurt you.”
My heart wobbled at the way she sucked in a slow breath as she tried to compose herself. “You’re not here. This isn’t happening.”
Guardians, I wanted to hold her again. To comfort her.
I had to help her but wasn’t sure how when she looked at me like I was the enemy. I guess I was to her and the whole human race.
There was a way, though. It would break me, but she’d be whole again.
I swallowed around the lump forming in my throat and fought back the terror that threatened to strangle me. It wasn’t my fear I needed to ease, though, but hers. Even my primal instincts agreed.
“You’re right.” I coughed to clear my throat. “It’s just a bad dream. I’m the monster in this nightmare, but if you trust me one more time, I can make this all go away.”
“Elias,” Uncle Hudson warned.
He knew what I meant. Knew what I’d ask of him if she agreed.
“Will you let me take you home?” I asked her.
When she didn’t flinch from my outstretched hand, I cupped her face in my palm. Her expression was open, her panic and curiosity warring with each other.
“You can make this all go away?”
Tears burned the backs of my eyes, but I smiled at my beautiful mate despite the way my heart broke. “If you’ll let me.” I said it softly, wishing there was another way.
But for Teddy, I wouldn’t just damn the world, but myself too.
She wrapped her fingers around mywrist and licked her lips. “Please,” she whispered. “I want to go home. Ryenne’s waiting for me.”
I held my arms open to her. She hesitated, chewing on her bottom lip as I waited for her.
Her friend was an inconvenience we’d have to remedy once we got there. Not in a way that would harm her or Teddy, but she couldn’t see us or, at the very least, remember us.
“I can help you, Teddy,” I promised. “When you wake up tomorrow morning, this will be nothing but a nightmare you barely remember.”
“Elias, no,” Everly said harshly.
She stepped forward, but George stopped her with a hand on her arm. She shrugged out of his hold but didn’t move to me again.
“You can’t,” Brenton argued. “You’re sentencing yourself to a lifetime of torment.”
My eyes stayed on Teddy. “I will always do what I must to protect you.”
And I’d survive because my life had never been my own. Since birth, my life belonged to the people of Niev, and for them, for Teddy, I’d survive anything.
She blinked, and she held herself rigid when she came to me. Her back straightened when my hands met her waist.
Hating myself, I withdrew them.
“Can you close those pretty eyes of yours for me, Teddy?” I asked, my voice low and reassuring.
She studied me, and I fought not to squirm under her scrutiny. My uncle and friends drew closer to us when her eyes shuttered closed. I tasted their dissatisfaction on my tongue, but I didn’t care what they thought. Only about how I could protect Teddy. Even if it meant protecting her from me.
“Think of your home, picture it in your mind,” I told her. “Can you see it?”
She was silent for a few beats. “Yes.”
