Page 111 of Owned By the Fae
His eyes are slits. ‘Or perhapsnot quite that one.’
I roll my eyes. Am I really going to have to defend myself to thispup?
‘I didn't know,’ I say. ‘I didn't mean for this to happen.’
I curse under my breath, my hands raking through my hair.
‘Does she know yet?’
I look him in the eye. ‘Yes,’ I grind out. ‘She sent me to tell you to hide ... Ryon?’ Unwelcome jealousy rushes through me. ‘Who the fuck is Ryon?’
Jak turns and gestures to a small cot in the corner that I didn’t notice before where a tiny faeling lies curled up asleep.
‘The boy,’ he murmurs, his ire seeming to recede for the moment.
I stare at the sleeping child. ‘I don’t understand.’
‘I heard a rumor once that a faeling was killed in the keep.’ He looked at me pointedly. ‘It was just before the fire. She didn’t tell me anything, but she was clearly worried about this one. I ... I said to her that I would hide Ryon if she asked it of me.’
I take a step back, my mind reeling.
‘Do it then,’ I say.
I leave the healer, feeling sick. Varrik always said the faelings were the most important part of the fold because there were so few of us. Could he really have allowed one to be killed? Jak certainly thinks so.
A desire to go and find Fiana bubbles up inside me, a need that, granted, has begun to diminish as I’ve been ignoring it over the past few days, but I still grimace. As soon as they told me what she’d done, I knew it was the truth. She really put a conjure on me to make me love her years ago. How could I not feel it? How could I not know it was there? The idea of her and Dane should send me into a jealous frenzy, but as I conjure images of them together, I feel nothing but anger that years of my life have been stolen from me, that my thoughts and feelings weren’t my own. Did she ever really care for me, I wonder? Did I truly ever care for her?
I wrack my brain for a time when I didn't. When she didn't consume my mind. When I didn't feel as I do now. But I can't remember one. Even though I can more easily fight it now that I know it for the trick it is, I want it gone. I want to be free of her. I push the faux feelings away, seeing them now as a pale imitation of the real thing. Not like when I look at Lia ...
I shy away from those thoughts as well. Lia hates me and with good reason.
I reach the keep, the wards letting me through easily. Outside Lia’s room, the guard ignores me as I slip inside, used to my comings and goings. One small advantage of Varrik’s orders, I suppose. I make sure not to open the door more than I have to as I go inside so that he can’t see that Lia isn’t alone in there, but as I close the door quietly, I stop short just inside the room.
The three of them are in the bed together. They don't seem to realize that I've entered. My breath hitches as I watch Kal kiss her deeply and leisurely, half in yearning because even when I’ve tried to go slowly, she doesn’t want me really, and half in embarrassment that I’m witnessing this private moment between them. Yet I don’t look away, and I don’t make a sound as I move closer and sit carefully in a chair that affords me the best view of their activities.
Grey’s hand slowly makes its way under her dress, making her moan a moment later as he begins to play with her. Kallum doesn’t break their kiss as he raises her arms and binds them to the headboard.
She lets him, and I feel my mouth go dry even as my cock hardens painfully in my breeches. It works so easily in Lia’s presence, I’ve noticed, dancing to attention as soon as I hear her name, whereas, in Fiana’s, it has remained limp, refusing to perform.
I watch with bated breath as Grey hikes up her chemise and Kallum unlaces it at the neck. By the time they’re finished, she might as well not even be wearing it, and I can see everything from my vantage point.
I part of me says this is another invasion. I should look away, but when my eyes move to the floor, I hear Kallum’s voice as he pulls his mouth away from her breasts.
‘You’re coming with us, Dane,’ he states.
His tone is light but it brooks no argument.
I thought, after all this, that they’d definitely forsake me, and my face must show my thoughts because he snorts.
‘You thought we’d leave without you?’
I nod, and he grins, making Lia writhe as he rolls her nipples between his fingers. Lia catches my eye over Kal’s hands, and I’m ensnared by her gaze.
‘No, Dane,’ Kal says, looking down at Lia with a small smile. ‘You won’t be left, just as we won’t make you go while Grey and I pleasure our female before you.’ His eyes flash as he looks at me. ‘But you won’t be touching her again, not until she decides.’
My brow furrows. Until? He’s wrong. He must be. She despises me. She must. In trying to help me and my brothers, I caused her unimaginable suffering at the hands of my kind. In trying tohelp her, I've caused her even more misery. All of this is my fault. How can I ever make it up to her? How would I even begin?
But her eyes don’t leave mine. She stares at me even as her mouth opens on a moan while Grey laps between her legs.
