Page 17 of The Chosen Fae

"I will. Night, Stone."

Then Rune entered her room and found a beautiful wolf blanket on her bed for the chilly nights. From her sponsor? Maeve didn’t have a blanket—or a sponsor. And Rune was thrilled for that.

Rune changed into her pajamas and covered herself with the blanket, so soft and warm. The bedspreads were white and thin. This time she wouldn’t have to turn into her wolf to get warm like last night.

Maeve entered the room and frowned at her. "I heard your sponsor delivered the blanket to you."

"Oh, I didn't know that for sure. I wondered where yours was. It's so nice and warm and soft too," Rune said, rubbing it in. Then she took in a deep breath and let it out. "Night, Maeve."

Maeve grunted and climbed into her bed.

Rune kept thinking about the baby and saving it, glad she had. She also thought about Stone, sitting on the rocking chair like he was at a movie, watching the scene play out and enjoying the entertainment.

Then she finally fell asleep at the late-night hour.

Suddenly, Rune felt a suffocating pressure on her face. She thought she was having a nightmare of epic proportions. She fought to breathe and realized her face was covered with a pillow. She tried to pull the pillow away, her mind half awake, but fading from the lack of oxygen.

"Die," Maeve said, "and I can have your beautiful wolf blanket as a souvenir."

Ohmigod, Maeve was trying to use her pillow to suffocate Rune! She struggled to pull it off her face, but Maeve was on top of her, and the girl was strong and heavier than Rune.

At one point, Maeve stopped pushing the pillow so hard, maybe figuring she had killed Rune. With a slight bit of air and her mind getting some clarity, though the pillow was still blocking her vision, Rune grabbed for the hilt of her sword underneath her blanket. She couldn’t find it.

Then she managed to touch the hilt with her fingertips, but it was just beyond reach. She scooted over a tiny bit and managed to grab it. She pulled it free from where it was under her wolf blanket before Maeve could react.

Maeve tried to regain the advantage and pressed against the pillow again. Before she was able to suffocate Rune to the point of blacking out again, Rune swung her sword and cut Maeve's arm.

She screamed out.

Rune shoved the pillow off her face, but Maeve tried to push the pillow onto her face again, one-handed this time. Rune cut Maeve's leg to make her give up her quest. Maeve cried out again and collapsed on the floor.

Her leg and arm were cut, but not badly. It seemed Maeve couldn't move from the floor if she'd wanted to, and she favored her limp arm, cradling it with her good arm. Rune stared at her. Had the sword made Maeve's limbs go numb?

Maeve screamed for help, saying Rune had tried to kill her. Rune just stared at her, figuring she was going to be thrown out of the program, not Maeve. Which meant Rune would get to return to her glen, which was a good thing.

Maeve was hardly bleeding, so Rune didn't know why she was making such a fuss. Rune figured she was doing it because she wanted to look like the victim instead of the perpetrator. Like Rune had just decided to cut her for no reason!

And really, if it was a case of her word against Rune's, it looked like Maeve was the innocent in all this. Sure, she had a grudge against Rune, but Maeve was the one who was injured, and Rune couldn't prove she'd nearly been suffocated to death.

"Come on, Maeve, it's not that bad!" They didn't have any first aid kits in the rooms, but Maeve's cuts weren't even bleeding any longer since she hadn't cut her deeply, and because they healed up so quickly.

Maeve tried to get up, but she couldn't move her one arm, and she couldn't stand. "You poisoned me!"

"What? No. There's nothing on the sword. And you tried to smother me to death!"

"In your dreams."

That's what Rune was afraid of. That Maeve would claim Rune had injured Maeve and that she hadn't done anything to Rune.

"Push your alert button," Rune finally said, thinking Maeve might really need medical attention.

"No. I'm not leaving the games!" Then Maeve began screaming again.

Rune heard footfalls heading toward their room. She wished she could say goodbye to Stone and explain what had happened before they removed her from the games and returned her home to her glen.

Suddenly, two men threw open the door, wearing uniforms of white, part of the security staff at the gaming facility.

"She tried to kill me!" Maeve screamed at them, crocodile tears streaking her face and dripping onto her pajama shirt, all a big performance.