Page 165 of Bitten By the Fae
But I didn’t have it in me to comment on it. I was too tired of everything. The bickering. The feelings. This whole experience. I just wanted it all to go away and leave me alone.
Shade took the bottle away from my lips, the liquid gone.
Silence followed, the noiseless activity blissfully welcome. I inhaled his peppermint scent, allowed it to cling to my lungs and fill me with comfort.
It was wrong. I should push him away and tell him not to touch me.
Instead, I leaned into him more, seeking his strength.
The death fields always drained me; just the notion of their threat hurt my heart. They were gone now, thanks to Queen Claire and her mates defeating the abomination who’d created the vacuum of trapped souls.
That didn’t stop me from remembering its existence.
Shade’s lips met my forehead, his strong arms holding me tightly in the foyer of Kols’s suite. The reality of the moment should have drawn a disbelieving laugh from me, but I felt too dead inside to utter such an amused sound.
Footsteps echoed around us as someone stepped through the threshold, the woodsy aroma warning me of Zeph’s presence. I snuggled deeper into Shade’s chest, longing to disappear.
I felt weak.
Alone.
Just sodonewith it all.
This helplessness would pass, the emotion residual from the illusions Emelyn had created. I hated her in that moment, despised her ability to make me feel so worthless and meek. She’d gotten off easy because Kols had stopped me.
Why? Because she was his betrothed?
My jaw clenched with the thought. How ridiculous that he would stand up for hisfiancéeafter spending days in the human world bedding mortals.
A growl threatened my chest, my annoyance mounting by the minute.
He was a horrible mate.
He denied me after our bond snapped into place, accusing me of planting the seed on purpose. Like I could control an Earth Fae connection on my own. A level-three placement meant he wanted it, too. But he burned all my things in response, sent me running into the LethaForest, and filled our bond with such exquisite power that I felt as if I were about to burst.
Then he claimed not to hate me and, less than a day later, had me imprisoned.
Well, technically Shade had me imprisoned with that recording.
Kols and Zeph had just orchestrated the arrest and the collar around my neck.
I frowned, touching the leather now with the tip of my index finger.
It’d done nothing to stop me from blasting Emelyn’s power today. Or had it tried to thwart me and I’d just moved around it?
A consideration for later.
What was I even doing here, allowing Shade to hold me like this? The three males were conversing around me, their words slowly trickling into my ears.
“…dismantled Emelyn’s spell,” Kols was saying. “Then she put the bitch on her ass.”
“It was beautiful,” Shade put in helpfully.
“She used her Quandary Blood abilities.”
Shade shrugged, his hand still rubbing my arm gently. “No one noticed. She didn’t utter a single spell out loud. From what they could tell, she just sent Emelyn into a vision, which was today’s exercise, right? Not Aflora’s fault that Emelyn couldn’t handle a dose of her own medicine.”
“Is Emelyn all right?” Zeph asked, his voice low.
