Page 26 of A Dream Shrouded in Fury
“He doesn’t wish to stay.”
“No.”The word had never hurt me so much.
I braced for her “I told you so,” but all she did was shift her gaze over my shoulder, and I didn’t need to turn around to know Cliff was behind me.I recognized his comforting proximity and the smell of pine that drifted from his clothes.He stood close to me in a show of support, but he was also reminding me not to break.My position here, my reputation, had already been tainted by bringing Jael home.I didn’t need to make things worse for myself.
Unfortunately for him, even if the signs weren’t visible, I was already falling apart.
Maybe I had time to convince Thorn not to go through with her sentence.If I could get Jael to cook for her, or play his flute, if I could show her that he was more than a threat—that he hadvalue, maybe—
“They die tonight,” Thorn said.“Make it happen.”
My stiff legs threatened to give out, and Cliff wrapped his hand around my arm to steady me.
“I’ll see it done,” he said.
Thorn’s gaze flicked towards me, then away.And then she was gone, as though she hadn’t just crushed my heart in her merciless fist.
Jael
XIX
“There’s definitely something going on out there,” Pimmin said as they ducked their head back in through the curtain.“The vampires are all gathered.Some of them look… eager.”
I shoved my hands deeper into my pockets and paced the length of the small room again.Whatever they were discussing, I doubted it was tonight’s meal plan.
Unless it was.
A chill hugged my spine, and I shrugged it away.What was I afraid of?That I was going to die?If we managed to sneak out of this cavern and track down Princess Brynna’s carriage, the likelihood was that we would die before we reached her anyway.All around me, my options were death.So why should I care?
The thought was so sudden and so liberating that I staggered against the wall and sank to the floor.
What did it matter?
I would be dead before the next full moon, so what difference did it make how it happened?
A laugh rumbled out of me, bitter but strangely lighter than any other sound that had escaped me since being thrown in this room.
“Oh good, he’s lost his mind,” Corban said from his corner where he hadn’t done anything except glower.
Hethyr and Pimmin squeezed closer together, and I suffered a pinch of regret on their behalf.They’d found something to live for outside the cause, and now it would be torn away from them.
While I…
I’d ruined things with Kalla by choosing my revenge over her.All I had left was death and darkness.But the universe had given me a final gift.I had thought to go to my end never playing another song or hearing a kind voice.I’d felt my magic.Kalla had allowed me to experience some brightness in a life that had been nothing but emptiness for six years.
I could be grateful for that.Whatever the future brought me, at least I’d had that.
Kalla
XX
Cliff didn’t release my arm until he’d dragged me well away from the crowd and into the isolated storage room where I’d had my last conversation with Jael.The room where, earlier tonight, my fae lover had told me he would rather die than be with me.
I fixed my gaze on the wall above Cliff’s shoulder, unwilling to think of the pain written across Jael’s face when he’d admitted it.
“Are you all right?”Cliff asked, ducking his head to catch my eye.
Reluctantly, I shifted my attention to him and opened my mouth to swear I was fine, that I’d known this was coming and had accepted it, but the words wouldn’t come.
