Page 58 of Revealing Fate

She was entirely compromised. Kal’s threat thickened the air between them. He wanted her to beg? To cry? Felíne had been terrorized beyond measure. Been imprisoned, hunted, and hurt. She’d barely finished fighting for her life. For all their lives. Rage, hot and untamed, flared beneath her breastbone.

Felíne leaned into the pressure on her throat. “I’m not begging you for shit,” she croaked. She was sick of fighting, but she’d fight him. She’d give him one last battle.

Her head bounced off the wall as Kal rattled her. “Tell me who you are!”

She winced, anger stoked by the new, unnecessary ache, but the pressure on her neck lessened. “Why? So you can betray me to my enemies?” She sneered. “So you can throw me in a pit to fight an impossible foe? So you can watch me die?”

Kalevar’s teeth snapped. “You think I wanted to watch you get torn to shreds? For all I know, you could be my enemy, and I still helped you! You didn’t even fucking try!”

Felíne’s eyes flew wide. Fury rolled through her in a violent wave that finally crested. “Didn’t even try? Of all the slack-witted, asinine, idiotic—” Her voice shook. “I fought for my life, you imbecile! I nearly fucking died!”

“I TOLD YOU TO SHIFT!” Kal roared, pounding his fist into the wall beside her.

“I CAN’T SHIFT!” she roared right back.

Kal straightened, his lids narrowed to slits. Felíne looked away, suddenly unable to meet his gaze. He released her neck and stepped back. The absence of his touch left her sagging against the wall.

“What did you say?”

Felíne’s brows drew together as she studied a seam in the floorboards. “You heard what I said.”

“What do you mean you can’t shift?”

Felíne tensed her jaw. The effort of maintaining this wretched lie left her spirit in tatters. She couldn’t do it anymore. She didn’t want to do it anymore. Damn the consequences. None of her other plans had worked anyway.

Felíne raised her eyes to Kalevar’s untrusting ones. “I mean exactly what I said. I. Cannot. Shift.” Her arms flailed, gesturing to her entire body. The movement made her groan, the deeper gash across her chest oozing anew. “I have no second form, Kal. I can’t shift.”

Kal’s heart began beating so fiercely that even Felíne’s less acute senses picked up on the increase in tempo. His lungs pumped, nostrils flaring widely with each inhale. The gold in his eyes intensified, glowing. “Who are you?”

Felíne’s posture deflated, but her chin lifted a hair. He wanted the truth? So be it. “My name is Felíne Lochlan Faelstrom. Daughter of the Crown of Asteros.” She met Kalevar’s wide, unwavering stare. “I am the Prima of Ilistaar.”

For a strained, torturous moment, neither of them moved. The only disturbance was the rushing sound Kal made as he sucked air into his cavernous lungs with great, greedy pulls. Time stretched.

Felíne’s heart was pounding so hard, she thought it might fracture her sternum. She’d just dropped the equivalent of an exploding powder keg between them and was still painfully unaware of the resulting damage.

Say something, she thought miserably. Anything other than this eerie unresponsiveness.

“Liar,” he declared, leaning close, voice deceptively soft. His hot breath fanned across her face like a caress, the sensation a stark contradiction to the accusation that slipped between his pointed teeth.

She swallowed. “Yes,” she confessed, and Kal’s pupils constricted. “I am a liar. But not about this.”

Black lips peeled back from elongated canines in a snarl.

She met his unyielding gaze, withstood the crushing waves of his disbelief and anger, the way a breakwater might endure the onslaught of a hurricane. Felíne could take his rage; in fact, she hungered for it. It was infinitely better than the hurt and betrayal it masked. She’d have to face those things eventually, but she didn’t think she currently had the strength.

Kal’s molten eyes searched her, probed every corner of her soul, and she bared it to him. Felíne finally had nothing left to hide. She thought she’d feel relief but was left with only a bone-deep exhaustion.

She saw the moment he understood. Witnessed the slow, inevitable realization of who she was sweep away the doubt that lingered in his predatory features.

Kal’s clawed fist slammed against the wall with a shuddering boom. The house quaked. A sound caught between a growl and a cry of anguish escaped his chest. Then he spun away from her and was gone.

Felíne’s legs gave way. She sagged against the wall, sliding down until she hit the floor, legs splaying out in front of her, and cried.

Chapter 23

AFTERMATH

KAL WAS RAGE—UNLEASHED, UNHINGED, primordial rage. He tore into the forest. Woodland beasts bolted. Birds launched into terror-stricken flight. The black wolf that patrolled his property saw him and crouched, tail tucked, lips peeled back in snarled warning. It let out a yelp of alarm before taking off in the opposite direction.