Page 107 of The Stone Secret
“I’ll head back to the infirmary and get Willowman’s appliances,” Levi said.
They quickly left, and the twins ventured into the room. “We should all eat something. We’ll make some pasta.”
They left too.
Everyone needed to be doing something, I guess.
“He’s going to be all right, right?” Shar asked Yarrow. “Now we have this tincture?”
“Yes,” Yarrow said. “It will heal him, but it’ll be slow. I doubt he’ll be strong enough to assist in your cadet exams.”
Fuck the exams. “I don’t care about that. I just want him to be okay.”
Shar grabbed my hand from across the bed and squeezed. “He will be. He’s strong. Just like you.”
“If Willowman makes it back before the exams, he might have a stronger tincture we can use to speed things up,” Yarrow said. “But if not…I don’t think you should take the exams.”
“If I don’t take the exams, I’ll never be accepted by the initiates. I need to move forward either way. I hunted for years without a shield. I can pass the exam without one. All that matters is Derek heals up in his own time.”
“I want to get my hands on the bastard responsible for the wraiths,” Shar ground out.
“The elite are looking into it,” Yarrow said. “They set off as soon as we got back.”
The thought I’d avoided dwelling on since I woke in the infirmary pushed to the front of my mind. I’d been injured. Badly. And Serath hadn’t come to see me. He hadn’t even tried. He’d gone straight to the settlement instead.
It was his job. I got that, but…fuck, it hurt that he hadn’t cared enough to check on me.
“Never mistake my distance for disregard, Cameron. You have my heart, even though I cannot openly give it to you.”
I wanted to believe that. I really did.
But the more he pushed me away, the harder it was getting to believe that the distance didn’t matter.
CHAPTER44
SERATH
It’s been four hours. We’ve searched every inch of this place. There is no breach. I need to go back. I need to be with Cameron. Dammit, I should never have listened to Selas and come here.
I should be with my mate. “There’s nothing here. We need to go back.”
“One more sweep,” Selas says. “To be sure.” A growl of frustration rattles my chest, and she turns to me, her expression all hard lines and annoyance. “Pull your shit together. You can’t be with her. Not in the way you want. She’s alive. She’s being taken care of. She. Will. Be. Fine. But not if your cousin finds out the truth about your connection to her.”
“I can control myself.”
“No,” Orix said. “You can’t. We all know it. You know it. So let’s cut the bullshit and set the ground rules. You’re not allowed around Cameron when she’s anywhere near Levi or anyone else that doesn’t know the truth and could report you.”
I know that he’s right, but every fiber of my being wants to rebel, and my beast fights tooth and nail inside me to be free.
It’s taking everything I have to force it to comply.
“There’s nothing you can do for her right now,” Prasan says, the third voice of reason. “But you can help us figure out how the wraiths got past the council wards. You can help find that traitor and stop these attacks on Cameron once and for all.”
“Yes. I’m going to find out who’s behind this, and I’m going to crush them.”
“Great,” Selas says. “Now let’s do that second sweep.”
* * *
