Page 63 of The Barbaric Fae's Soul

“I’m sorry,” I whispered to it, though my lips moved so slowly I wasn’t even sure whether the words came out at all. “I just wanted to live.”

The klynna roared again at me, and I felt the connection between us slowly knit back together.

I felt it grow and swell, as it became something real. Something thick. Somethingalive.

And I felt the creature’s pain of being trapped.

Its fear of watching its mate be locked away again by the unseelie king.

Its desire for revenge, for all the years it spent trapped.

My eyes stung. “I’m so sorry,” I said to the creature, my voice cracking in my throat. “They thought you would kill them.”

The creature roared again—but this time, I didn’t feel anger.

Only pain, and echoed fear.

The klynnas thought the fae would kill them, too.

Hadn’t they tried to, so many times?

The klynna stomped away from me, and the ground shook beneath me. I was too weak to move—losing too much blood. I could feel my body trying to heal itself, but with so much of my life-force soaking the dirt already, there wasn’t enough magic, or energy, left to recover.

I was dying.

Not at the hands of my ex, who I’d thought would be my end so many years ago.

Not at the hands of the fae, who I’d realized could kill me the first moment we’d landed on that beach in Vevol.

But at the hands of a beautiful, elegant creature, who was protecting its family in the only way it knew how.

I supposed if someone was going to kill me, at least the klynna’s reason was valiant. It wasn’t a death I would be ashamed of—or one I would regret, if there was another life after this.

The klynna came back a moment later. I blinked at it when it dropped a claw-ful of mud on me. The thick, wet goop splattered on my face, covering my torso and legs.

It took a moment for me to process what had just happened, and why.

My mind was exhausted, and moving slowly.

But then I remembered what Fovea had said.

Blood and mud could keep someone alive.

Whether she knew it or not, my fake mate’s new wife had just saved my life.

Her, and the klynna.

My hands moved quickly, shakily,numbly, over the mud on my chest.

I had to mix it with the blood beneath me, but there was so much of both that it wasn’t a challenge.

I caked myself in it desperately, rushing to cover myself.

To save myself.

Because I might’ve wanted to die in that hospital back on Earth, before the fae appeared and saved me, but now?

Now, I wanted like hell to live.

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