Page 3 of Fractured Souls
“She’ll probably wake up soon,” Zander said. “Her magic is exhausted and somewhat drained, but it’s mostly shock from the star call—it was a bad one. I felt her trying to accept it, even…but it didn’t help.”
“Damn dark ones,” I murmured as I brushed my lips against her forehead.
“We’ll need to go back into Desmond’s kingdom first,” Draven said, “and then I’m guessing our plan is to go to—”
“The Elven realm,” Dean spit out, already sounding furious about it.
“The Kingdom of Night will be safe for her,”Adriel stated confidently. “It should also have the information we need.”
“Which is what, exactly?” Desmond asked. “What are we looking for, Zander?”
“Before I got the assignment to find you, I was attempting to figure out exactly that—a solution to defeating the dark ones. I hadn’t found anything in the Elven realm, but I planned on returning to search some more. If that doesn’t pan out, there’s a larger library we can search.”
“Why not go there first?” I asked curiously.
“Time passes differently there,” Zander answered. “I would rather not go there if we can avoid it, especially because I know time is short.”
“Fuck, that’s a big difference,” I murmured and tried to think about how much time had passed while we were down here.
The elevator doors opened, and I immediately strode towards our room. I trusted that the others would figure out packing up, so when we entered the suite, I took Lorcan to the couch and laid her down gently before going to get a glass of water and a wet rag. There was blood by her nose and ears from the star call, so I gently wiped it up, and the moment triggered a memory that I had long forgotten.
“A fight?! Are you serious?” Lorcan grumbled as she dabbed a wet rag over the cut on my cheek.
I kept my gaze on the patio as I tried to consider how to respond. I hadn’t wanted to tell her about the fight, but she’d demanded an explanation for why I’d been sent home early from school.
“Yes I’m serious,” I growled. “It was less of a fight and more of a lesson learned. That idiot had it coming, Lorcan.”
Her eyes darkened at my tone. “Who was it?”
“Doesn’t matter,” I grunted, not wanting her to focus on the shitty people in our class.
“Who was it,” she insisted, and I found that I couldn’t deny her the information—or really anything she wanted. I don’t think she realized that, though.
“Zeke.”
“What a bastard,” Lorcan growled, her anger now directed more to him than me. Which was something I would one hundred percent take. I hadn’t thought about her getting mad at me when the fight was happening; all I had cared about was that Zeke stopped talking about her the way he was. No one was allowed to talk about Lorcan like that.
Ever.
“What was he saying?” Lorcan asked quietly, though she likely already knew.
“He was just implying some shit I know isn’t true. He’s pissed about you never showing for that date,” I explained. Dean was the one who had kept her from going, and I was impressed he had stopped at that. I probably would have found Zeke and—
I halted my thoughts before they went too dark.
“I really don’t like him,” Lorcan admitted, her brow furrowing like she didn’t fully understand why. But I sure as fuck did.
I intertwined my fingers with hers as she finished cleaning the cut. “I’ll make sure you don’t ever have to deal with him.”
I would do far more than that if she asked—all Lorcan had to do was say the word and I would get rid of him forever.
“We have everything ready to go. I don’t think anyone is against us leaving. Besides that one asshole, everyone seemed to either not care or is just curious,” Desmond said. “Even so, I’m going to have our guard lead our departure—”
A knock on the door had all of us turning to look as it opened to reveal Hellsen and Red, looking uncharacteristically tense. Yeah…I had a feeling King Surchardson had stronger feelings about us leaving than he let on.
“What?” Draven snapped, as they stepped inside and closed the door. A dark fog filled the corners of the room, and I moved towards Lorcan, my animal pacing under my skin. We were only a few bad moves away from me defensively shifting, the drive to protect my mate turning all consuming.
“You need to leave,” Red said, attempting to be casual. “Immediately.”
