Page 31 of Fractured Souls
“No,” Dean grunted while grabbing a cup of coffee. Zander’s expression turned amused at Dean’s reaction, but I wasn’t surprised.
“Why can’t I call it that?” I teased.
“Don’t pay him mind, princess,” Adriel said as he joined us, his eyes warm as they ran over me. He looked more than a bit sleepy, but also very content and relaxed. “He’s just jealous.”
“Wish we could make a star baby?” I asked Dean as he sat right behind me.
His eyes flashed dark, the others laughing as he murmured, “Something like that.”
Well, I very much wanted to know what that something was…although knowing Dean as I did, I had a pretty good idea.
“I think we should go to the library today and see what resources we have available,” Adriel said, drawing my attention to the larger conversation. “Everyone will probably be resting after the party, so we won’t be disturbed.”
“Wait, Adriel,shit—You killed someone last night. One of your advisors.”
That seemed pretty damn important. Why hadn’t we talked about it yet? Well, I knew why…but it didn’t seem like a good excuse now.
“I did,” he mused. “Besides the fact that he insulted and threatened you, I’ve also been aware for a while now that he’s a spy, so there’s no loss there. Everyone will be made aware shortly.”
Oh. “Well that makes me feel significantly better.” I’d been worried that Adriel was going to look bad because of having to protect me. I would’ve been pissed if that was the case.
“I’m ready to go,” Desmond offered, placing down his coffee mug. “I want to get Lorcan breakfast beforehand, so we should leave—”
“Give me five!” I hopped up, knowing I needed to get ready still. “Food sounds amazing.” Seriously, I hadn’t been hungry at all when I first got up but, between coffee and the training, I was ready to eat.
As I changed quickly into a more appropriate outfit and washed my face, Adriel appeared behind me and put the crown on top of my head without a word. I smiled and shook my head because somehow he made even that cute.
“What type of information does this library have? Like how expansive are we talking?”
“Huge,” Adriel said. “And for information on sirens, a fair amount, especially about historical siren society.”
I paused brushing my hair as excitement surged through me, eager to learn about sirens. I couldn’t imagine living in a society filled with them.
What would it have been like to grow up around so many others like my brother and me? To have an entire village to support and love us…
I had a feeling we would have turned out a lot different.
CHAPTER11
Lorcan
“Little lamb, breathe.”
I snapped my head up to find Draven, who was sitting next to me on a cushioned bench, watching me with caution and more than a bit of concern. I had a feeling that I’d been staring into space for long enough that it had pulled him from his concentration. Luckily, everyone else appeared to still be distracted.
“I’m breathing.” I flashed a big smile, like Itotallywasn’t freaking out. “In fact, Draven, breathing is one of my favorite things to do.”
And I was totally horrible at distracting my fallen angel from asking mewhyI was freaking out.
His lavender eyes sparked with humor, but not enough to remove the other emotions there. “Lorcan.”
“I’m good,” I promised, tapping my hands on the closed leather book in my lap. The one I had yet to open. I wasn’t positive, after hours of searching, if this library even had what we needed. I mean, it seemed to haveeverything, so that was a start, but honestly not very helpful when it came to how I was feeling about our search.
I felt overwhelmed by the stack of books in front of me and the knowledge at my fingertips, all regarding sirens. Don’t get me wrong, I was excited to read through them…but it was a lot.
My men were doing a really good job at staying focused, open texts littering the tables in the library’s seating area as they searched to find anything of importance. I, on the other hand, was being pretty much useless, staring blankly at the book in my lap about siren history and culture. I would have questioned why Eleven realm citizens weren’t more informed about sirens—I mean, honestly, there was a ton of information—but I had to admit that these had been somewhat hidden away in an upper floor of the library.
I wondered if that was the case just here or in the Kingdom of Day as well.
