Page 46 of Wrath of the Fae

Clingingtothetoilet,I violently throw up. I heave and heave, emptying what little I have in my stomach. My recently broken rib is healing quickly. But each wretch feels like it’s breaking again and again. Sweat pours from my skin and my head thumps.

There’s a tap on the door.

‘Go away!’ I groan, flushing it away before slumping against the wall to try and catch my breath.

‘Please let me in,’ Lucca tries for what could be the hundredth time. ‘I said I was sorry.’

‘Sorry isn’t going to cut it, Lucca!’ I snap. I sip from my water and rinse out my mouth. I repeat the action several times and then crawl to the sink, where I wash my face. I look at myself in the mirror. I’m grey and look awful. ‘Telling Reid to do that when I was… you shouldn’t have done that!’

‘He had his fingers inside you when I turned up anyway,’ he whines in argument. ‘It’s no big deal.’

‘You don’t get to decide that, Lucca!’ I bark back.

He’s quiet for a minute before he summons the courage to speak again.

‘It worked, though,’ he argues quietly.

‘I mean it, Lucca. Fuck off!’

‘You were fading, and the more he touched you, the more control you had.’

‘Shut up!’

‘The Elder Woman says that you’re adrift. Part human. Part Fae. Conceived here but born there.’

‘I know what she says.’

‘You have one foot in the human world and one in the Fae. Until you make a solid connection to something anchored in either one-’

‘Seriously. Shut it!’

‘You won’t be able to control your power or yourself,’ he continues. ‘You said it. Ivan seemed to be waiting for you to use your power so he could latch onto it and start up his machine.’

I bury my face in my hands and groan loudly.

‘And whatever that growling shit you’ve started to do since you returned and that time you went all…. Grrrrr…. That’s not right either. The Elder Woman says you won’t be settled until you’re tethered to something as ancient as power itself. You need to remake the Bond, Pup. I don’t like it either, but there we go.’

He jumps when I throw open the door and face him. He grimaces.

‘Shit. You look like death.’

‘I’ll break your face if you don’t stop talking about this.’

‘We’re in new territory here. Your wings. Your ability to access the ancient power in those runes. I’m not saying get back together with them. Just remake the Bond, and then we’ll lock them up or something.’ He slides his hands into his pocket and shrugs as if that’s all so simple and easy. ‘C’mon, Pup. Don’t be mad at me.’

‘Don’t“Pup”me when I’m fighting the urge to shove your head up your arse.’

‘You’re different, Puuuuu… I mean…Raven,’ he adds my name with an uneasy smile. ‘You always have been. Ivan’s messed with your powers. Your body. Your very DNA. You’re a vessel for power. For transferring it or stabilising it in the human world. Your blood stopped us from going Dark over there and was the key to Ivan's power-stealing devices. Your feathered wings are ancient, too. You have the wings of a legend. A fairy tale about a Fae warrior queen from aeons ago. Back to the time of the Goddess and the birth of Fate. They shouldn’t exist, and yet they do. On you.’

‘I know that, Lucca!’ I snap, swatting away the finger he points at me. ‘You don’t need to remind me of all that shit.’ I pass him and sit on the edge of my bed. He watches my every step whilst leaning against the bathroom door frame.

‘Talk to me,’ he says softly. ‘There’s nothing you could say that would shock me.’

‘Now you want to talk about them?’ I scoff. My elbows rest on my knees as I slump, seeing him simply waiting for me to talk. ‘He said he triggered Della and sent her to us. That he wanted to give us an advantage over them.’

His brow furrows. ‘Was he lying?’

I shake my head. ‘Utter truth.’ I groan. ‘I know the what. I need to know the why.’

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