“You’re not weak, little rose,” he whispered, his knuckles brushing one of the hands still covering my face. “You’re one of the strongest females I’ve ever met.”
This time I did laugh and lowered my hands to my lap while meeting his gaze. “That’s not what you said when we first met. I believe you called me a delicate flower, just after saying someone called me beautiful.” I frowned with the memory, my focus sharpening. “Whotold you I would be beautiful, Shade?”
“Does it matter?” he countered. “What’s done is done.”
“As I’m going to die soon, I’d like to know who subjected me to this fate. So yeah, it matters. Who in the Fae gave me to you as a mission?” Wasn’t that what he’d called me when we first met? A “task”?
“You’re not going to die soon, Aflora.” He caught my chin between his thumb and forefinger, giving it a subtle squeeze. “We won’t let anyone hurt you.”
Webeing him, Zeph, and Kols.
Ha.“Yeah, I believe that.”Not.Had the three of them helped ground me? Yes. But that didn’t inspire much trust, not after my last few months with them. “Why did you bite me?”
I meant all of them at once, which he must have understood because he replied, “To save you from exploding again.” His tone suggested his response was obvious.
He was right only because he hadn’t told me what I really wanted to know.
“Why would you care if I detonated? I mean, why not just kill me? I’m a danger to you, toeveryone. Why help me?” I should be dead. A buried abomination. Destroyed. Not feeling centered within my myriad of power. Not entertaining mate-bonds tothreemale fae.
None of this made any sense.
He sighed, released my chin, and turned toward one of his dressers. I waited for a reply as he opened a drawer. Continued to wait as he opened a second. Then arched a brow when he turned around to hand me a pair of boxers and a shirt.
“I don’t want clothes. I want answers.”
His gaze slid downward, heat flaring in his pupils. “Well, that’s up to you, but I have to admit my focus is a little distracted with you wearing nothing in my room. Particularly after two months of foreplay in our dreams.”
Ugh!I’d forgotten I was naked, my attention divided between my fate and my confusion over what just happened outside. “How did I lose all my clothes?” I’d run out of my room with pants and a shirt on. No shoes. But I had no idea how?—
“You destroyed them when you blew up out in the field.”
I blinked. “Blew up?”
“You went up in flames, Aflora.” He dropped the shirt and boxers beside me. “Bright cerulean flames, I might add, and you destroyed the entire clearing. I’d be impressed if you hadn’t nearly killed me and Zeph in the process.”
My eyebrows flew upward. “What?”
He studied me for a long moment, his icy blue irises thinning as his pupils dilated. “There’s too much power inside you, little rose. It required a release, only your explosion wasn’t enough and you were gearing up for a larger one. So we reacted accordingly.”
By biting me,I translated.
“Why?” I asked.
“Why does there need to be a reason?”
“Because I should be dead, Shade!” I snapped, irritated by his continued evasiveness. This hot and cold game with him needed to end. “Just tell me why this is happening. Why did you bite me? Who put you up to this? What’s your?—”
His lips captured mine, just as they always did at this point in our dreams.
I refrained from biting him, aware of what that would do.
And instead dug my nails into his neck, deep enough to draw blood.
He flinched and encircled my throat with his palm, pushing me down to his bed. “Is that how you want to play, Aflora?”
“I’m tired of playing,” I told him, my voice holding a low growl in it. “I want information, Shade. No more of these half answers.”
“A half answer implies I’ve given you at least a partial response, which I mostly haven’t.”
