Page 52 of A Song of Air
Ev didn’t seem to notice though, or if he did, she couldn’t tell as he threw an arm around her shoulder.
There was a tense moment of silence in which she knew the two were staring at one another. It made her uncomfortable and she wanted to leave as quickly as she possibly could. She started to pull away, but Ev held firm, keeping her in place.
“Hey,” he said. “There a problem here?” He directed the question at the Fae man.
He didn’t reply, only smirked. And it angered Ev so much that his hand tightened painfully against the ball of her shoulder.
“Well, we got shit to do.”
The Fae still didn’t reply.
She knew Ev wanted to mark some fictional territory, to let this man know that even if he and Bryson were mates, Bryson belonged to Ev. But this wasn’t going according to his plan, as the Fae didn’t even reply. He was eerily silent, but Bryson could stillfeelhim around her, inside her.
Wanting. Waiting.
Remembering the sinister tone of his voice and the threat he’d not-so-vaguely gave, she finally yanked at Everett, pulling him away and walking in the opposite direction. But even as she walked away from him, her body screamed at her. A physical reaction to the bond that lay invisible in between them...
...begging for her to go back.
A Favor Claimed
It was almost surrealto hold her sister’s hand in front of a fire. For a second, Iona’s mind flashed back to before. Before the war had decimated their lives and taken everything from them. She recalled sitting like this, with different people. With her parents, her brother, and Malika. Of roasting meat and watching the juices drip into the flames. Those nights were filled with laughter as they watched the stars across the Jade Court sky, their bodies tired and weary from a long day of exporting fruits and making fruit flavored ice for tourists... Yet they’d been happy.
Iona was happy now, but there was also a melancholy around the situation as she listened to her sister tell her story.
“I was supposed to have been executed,” she whispered. “We all were. Everyone they’d hauled into that cart and was being transported away...” There was a strength in her voice, one never would have known she’d suffered once upon a time. “Bryson was there too, and we were friends... We figured we wouldn’t make it out alive.”
“How did you?” Iona’s hand squeezed hers, but she doubted her sister needed that strength when she seemed to draw enough of it on her own. Even Malika looked down at their joined hands as if they surprised her.
Iona knew what she felt.
“Arlo Blackwood,” Malika replied.
The half-Fae man who looked as though he’d wanted to kill them all.
“He killed the humans transporting us and freed us from the cart.”
