Page 283 of Bitten By the Fae
“That’s what my father felt, too,” Kols whispered.
“Do you think he knows the truth?” Tray asked, shifting his stance beside Ella. She’d remained abnormally quiet at his side, her blue eyes wide with growing trepidation. Her fiery personality had taken a back seat to the heavy conversation flowing around her.
“He might,” Kols said. “He knows the Quandary Bloods are still alive. Which means he knows I was trying to hide something by saying I dueled with Shadow.”
“I think he knows a lot more than you realize,” I drawled, very aware of what Malik knew and hid from his son. But it wasn’t my place to engage in that conversation.
Kols’s eyes flashed. “Meaning what?”
“Meaning you should talk to him,” I suggested, rolling my neck as another shudder went down my spine.Fucking gargoyle.
“And what should we do about Aflora?” Zeph demanded. “I’m not leaving her with Zakkai. You say he won’t hurt her, but your word is unreliable.”
“I’ve never lied to you.” I’d just withheld certain details. Or a lot of them. Regardless… “I would never put Aflora in jeopardy.”
His eyebrows shot up as he huffed a humorless laugh. “Yeah, I believe that. She’s only been imprisoned twice because of you and then disappeared into a paradigm where I can’t mentally reach her at all. All three instances scream safety, don’t they?”
My teeth clenched. “She’s fine.”
“I’ll believe that when I see it.”
“Then I’ll take you to her,” I said, throwing my hands wide. “Is that what you need? Because he’ll let me into the paradigm. I mean, he might kill you in the process since you’re tied to Kols,and he wants the entire Nacht family line to burn. But sure. Let’s give it a go. Now, perhaps?”
I was so done with this bullshit about trust and lies and deceit. I didn’t enter this role of my own volition. It chose me. Fate decided to make me her bitch and turn my world upside down. I’d spentyearsprotecting everyone. And for what? To be attacked by a damn gargoyle and left to suffer beneath an elitist spell?
Fuck this shit.
I just wanted a damn nap.
No, I wanted to hold my mate.
Oh, but she hated me now.Again.
This wicked loop needed to fucking end.
“You know how to locate her?” Kols asked softly.
“Of course I do,” I snapped, done with this dance.
Kyros cocked a brow, surprised by my tone.
I ignored him.
“Can you work out a way for Zeph to see Aflora?” Kols pressed. “One where he isn’t killed by Zakkai? If what you say is true about him caring for Aflora, then perhaps he would be open to a meeting, to discuss how to work this out between us.”
Now Kyros’s lips parted.
As did mine.
Becauseneverhad Kols suggested such a notion. He always wanted to charge in there with all his elitist energy and destroy.
But now… he wanted to talk? To seek a potentially diplomatic solution? This couldn’t all just be because I’d bitten him. Maybe it had something to do with Aflora, or the Council sharing their knowledge of the Quandary Bloods. That’d been another change in this rendition of events, as had everything that occurred before it.
This entire version of time differed from the others.
It sparked a glimmer of hope inside me that maybe I’d finally gotten this right.
I really hoped that was the case because there was no going back now, not without forfeiting everything I’d learned in the process.
