Page 25 of The Barbaric Fae's Soul

But my body still relaxed more with his words.

“I didn’t outfly it,” I admitted to Summer, and everyone else who was listening in. There were still other conversations happening nearby, but murmurs quieted them.

“You froze it?” someone asked Aev.

“No. It nearly ended us,” he said. “But Dakota’s magic connected to it, and when she ordered it to leave, it flew away.”

That wasn’t exactly how it had gone… but I had a feeling he wanted them to see me as strong, and powerful. Saying that I ordered it to leave made me sound a lot less pathetic than saying I’d begged it to.

The fact that he was protecting me like that made me really damn glad I’d trusted my instincts when it came to befriending him. Those instincts were scarred bitches, but sometimes, they did well.

And this was definitely one of those times.

Thanks to Aev’s revelation, you could’ve heard a bird fly over the trees, because the forest was so quiet.

“How?” Korrik finally asked.

But he wasn’t looking at Aev.

He was looking atme.

Talking tome.

Waiting for an answer.

Because he respected me to give one, I realized.

And damn, that made my chest warm.

Maybe I liked unseelies more than I had realized.

“I don’t know,” I admitted. “I didn’t do it on purpose. I spoke to the klynna, and for some reason, it listened.”

More silence followed that revelation.

“It’s because she’s a life-bringer,” Fovea said gravely. “Vevol blesses them in many ways.”

“How wouldlife-bringerscontrol the monsters?” Summer argued.

“The same way a wish could open a portal to bring us here, I’d imagine,” North said, stepping closer to me and Summer. “None of it’s logical. There’s magic woven into every fiber of this world, and Vevol has more power than we can imagine.”

“So what do we do, then?” Summer asked. “I don’t want to throw myself in some monster’s path to see if I can convince it not to eat us.”

“You won’t.” Remmo’s voice left no room for question.

“I won’t risk my life-bringers either,” Fovea said. “And we cannot use the new human females as bait; we haven’t classified them yet, and most are still unwilling to shift.”

“I’ll do it,” I offered.

Everyone looked at Aev.

I didn’t even wonder if they were looking at me.

His fingers pressed against my back a little, but he said nothing. Instead, he turned his gaze to me.

So everyone else did too.

“I can’t fight, so I might as well be useful in some way,” I said with a shrug. “If I die, then at least I’ll die trying to protect the rest of you.”

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