Page 25 of A Dream Shrouded in Fury
Hurt flickered across her features, then was gone.“What about everything you told me before?That you wanted to leave it all behind and move past your anger?Was Thorn right?Were you telling me what you thought I wanted to hear?”
It pained me that she would consider it.Yes, I was fae, but I was no trickster.Jael the Court Musician might have been tempted to smile and charm his way into her bed without a care for her heart, but that carefree bastard no longer existed.Everything I’d shared with her had been real.
“Of course not.I meant every word.”Every touch, every look.I hardened myself, knowing what the distance would cost me.“But that was before I knew I still had a chance to finish what I started.”
If that chance had never arrived, maybe I would have succeeded in leaving my past in the past, but with Corban’s anger ringing in my ears, I knew it never would have disappeared completely.Not while Leonine slept soundly in his bed.
Kalla squared her jaw and stepped back.Her stare had grown stonier, as though she’d tapped into the foundations of the mountain itself, and suddenly she was no longer the woman I’d laughed with in our haven, the woman who’d cried over my song and tried to learn how to cook for me.She’d become like the others of her kind: beautiful and cold.
“Kalia me.”My resolve cracked, and I reached for her, begging her not to leave.Not like this.“Lutrena me.”
She took another step away.
“I could come back,” I said.“After it’s done.When Leonine is finally off his throne and Brynna is dead, I could come back.”
Even as I said it, I knew how unlikely it was that I would ever see Kalla again.If I wasn’t fighting to stay, I was a liability.Either Thorn killed us all, or the fae guards would.I had two desires tearing me apart, and odds were I would be dead before I could grab either one.
Kalla
XVIII
I led Jael back to the other fae and left him there, unable to look him in the eye.He’d chosen death over me, and he knew it.
I’d known what he would say the moment I walked into the room to find him pacing.Although his expression had been impassive, when he’d turned to find me standing there, his green eyes had been wild with unrestrained emotion.His anger had returned, and he didn’t know how to tell me.I’d sworn to myself I was ready for his decision.
But I hadn’t been about to make it easy for him.If he was going to walk into his end, I wanted him to own it.
Now he had.So, good.I would allow him to accept the consequences of his choices, and I would return to my life in the fury.Jael would be a blip in my history.A story for others to tease me about for centuries to come.A memory for me to ponder at night, wondering what might have been, and an example of what happened when good sense failed me.
I stalked back into the cavern and held my chin high under the stares boring into me.Curiosity, animosity, frustration, incredulity.None of my peers understood why I’d done what I had, but they didn’t need to.They were the unlucky ones.Whatever Thorn’s verdict, whatever happened to Jael, I’d experienced something few of them ever would: the spontaneity of meeting a stranger and connecting with them on a level beyond blood and sex.There were a few love-mated couples among the fury, but most of the bindings here were arranged to ensure we kept the bloodlines distinct—something that would get increasingly difficult the longer we remained in one place with so few new vampires arriving.
I refused to blame myself for letting my heart get tangled up in this broken fae.I’d made my choice the same way he’d made his and, like him, I would deal with the consequences.
When a ripple of hushed whispers spread throughout the cavern, a shiver ran down my spine with the weight of premonition, and somehow I knew those consequences were about to boot me in the ass.
I followed the direction everyone’s attention had gone, and my gaze landed on Thorn where she stood in front of her chair.Her arms were crossed, and she stared at the floor—the image of deep contemplation.I recognized the tension in her shoulders.She was about to break news someone wouldn’t like.She wouldn’t hesitate to tell them, leading with courage, but she accepted she’d have her own consequences to deal with.
Seemed like consequences were going around this morning.A devastating plague.
On wooden legs, I strode towards her.As soon as I approached, Thorn lifted her gaze, and her stance changed.She widened her feet, pulled her shoulders back, and met my eye.
“I’ve made my decision,” she said.
I forced a swallow and waited.
“For going against the rule of the fury, you, Kalla, are prohibited from stepping foot outside this mountain without supervision for the next fifty years.”
I held her stare, refusing to show my horror at the pronouncement.Fifty years.As many years as I’d been alive.No more solo trips to my haven, no solo scouting missions.It was better than death, but my sanity would be shredded by the end.
“For the fae, they have a choice,” she continued, leaving me barely any space to process what she’d dropped on me.“They’re here and the damage has already been done.If they choose to stay and be useful, they are invited to make a probationary home with us.”
Before I had time to be shocked by her generosity, she finished, “If they decide they’d rather not live under a mountain in a community of vampires, they die.”
I thought of Jael’s eyes when he’d told me he was returning to the rebels.His remorse and his stubbornness.I could present this deal to him—a better deal than I would have imagined we’d get—and maybe he would accept it.But he would come to resent it.Being forced into a prison, even with your lover as company, was no future for a child of the sun.
Thorn’s piercing gaze narrowed.“You’ve already spoken to him.”
My limbs were numb around my heavy “Yes.”
