Page 33 of To Crave Deeply
I was sitting on the sofa between Rae and Saskia, chatting happily away when Fenris rushed in looking like he’d seen a ghost. His face was ashen, and blood was smeared across his chin. His eyes searched frantically for someone.
“Where’s Jasper?” he asked quickly.
I was on my feet in an instant and bridging the distance between us. The haunted look that burned in his eyes terrified me.
“What is it? What happened?” I asked.
“I need Jasper. I need to—” His words cut off as he winced in pain, his hands clutching his ribs.
“Let me help you,” I said as I tried to drag him to one of the chairs, but he brushed me off and pulled his arm away like he’d been burned. His eyes closed in pain, and I could tell it was more than just physical. It was like I’d reached into his chest and grabbed his fucking heart.
“I don’t need your help.” His voice was bitter. Angry. And my own heart clenched in response.
“Hey!” Rae shouted. “If you don’t want her help, fine, but there’s no need to sound like a dick about it.”
I could always count on Rae to come to my defence but whatever was between me and Fenris needed to be figured out by us. As much as I loved Rae, I didn’t always like her mulish way of handling things.
“Rae, it’s fine.” I shot her a glance that I hoped told her to back off, but she just shook her head and rolled her eyes. I turned back to Fenris and found him looking at me with sorrow in his eyes. The usual rich umber had darkened to an almost black hue as he stared at me. If the eyes were the windows to the soul, then what I was looking at now was heart-breaking. There was a look of burning need, but it was being swallowed by regret, suffering and just outright anguish.
I knew why. I knew what tormented him, because it was the same thing that tormented me. I couldn’t have him, and I’d never be able to have him. He’d never be mine, and we’d probably be stuck seeing each other for the rest of our lives, never having explored whatever this was between us. We’d end up resenting each other, maybe even hating each other, and all because he hadn’t told me he was already engaged.
He’d let me fall for him and now, every time I looked at him, my heart broke a little bit more.
“He’s in the kitchen,” I said, a sharp tone curling around my words. I hadn’t meant to sound so snappish, but I let my emotions get the better of me.
He didn’t even reply. Just turned back around and left the room to find Jasper. Air rushed from my lungs on a deep sigh. How was I ever going to fix this?
“I’m going to see what’s going on. You guys coming?” Saskia called as she raced to catch up to Fenris.
“Right behind you!” Rae shouted to Saskia’s retreating form, but she stopped in front of me and fixed me with a severe stare.
I cringed. “I know. I know. You don’t need to tell me.”
“Babe, you need to sort that shit out. That right there, that anguish and yearning that we can all see, is going to fester between you two and nothing good will come of that.”
I pushed the heels of my palms into my eyes, hoping to burn away the image of Fenris and his sorrowful eyes from my memory. “I know, but how am I supposed to fix it? How am I supposed to undo the fact that I—”
“Easy,” Rae interrupted. “You either let him go and stop thinking about him or you fuck his brains out once to get him out of your system and move on.”
I barked out an unpleasant laugh. Of course, she would think it was that easy. That was how Rae viewed the world, in simple terms. To her it was black or white, and there were no messy, middling shades of grey. It was one of her greatest strengths but also one of her biggest weaknesses. I sometimes envied her easy way of viewing the world. To me, it was a smorgasbord of different hues of fucking grey. Nothing made sense and nothing was easy. Especially my love life.
“As much as I love you Rae, I don’t think it’s going to be quite that easy. But you can explain it over tacos and tequila later. Right now, I want to find out what the Hell is going on.”
She rolled her eyes at me but capitulated. “Fine, but just so you know, I’m not the only one who thinks Fenris is a dick.”
“What do you mean?”
She gave me a shit-eating grin. “Apparently, when Iveri was leaving with Torsten after you died, she threw a knife at him and said that it was for you, and that he should be grateful that she wasn’t aiming at his dick.”
“Shut the front fucking door? She didwhat?!”
Rae’s smile turned positively gleeful. “I know! God, I wished I’d seen it. He totally deserved it, though. He should have told you and we all know it. If Iveri hadn’t stabbed him, I think I might have put a little curse on him.” I frowned. I wasn’t sure what to make of it. On one hand, I was kind of grateful she’d done it, but on the other, it pissed me off that she’d attacked him. Sometimes, I didn’t know what to make of Iveri.
“You know, if you ignore the whole stealing your body while you were dead thing, Iveri seems like a great person to have around,” Rae mused, her words echoing my own confused thoughts.
I still needed to figure out exactly what I’d done to her. I still didn’t completely understand my magic and I’d acted purely on instinct to capture her. I didn’t know whether I’d just caged her in my shadows or bound her to me, or if I’d done something worse. I needed to go and see Levi, but first, I needed to find out what the Hell had spooked Fenris.
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