Page 38 of Fae Farewells

It sounded insane, but what fucking didn’t these days?

“It can be faked,” she told me.

“I’m sure I could have faked it,” I admitted. “But I'm not one for wasting my time with such material things. I don’t need crowns to know who my mates are. And trust me when I say the last thing I need is another title or more responsibility.”

She crossed her arms over her chest as she lazily leaned back in her throne. And my attention snapped to the strange swirls of magic on her skin. I wouldn’t have noticed it if she hadn’t moved, but now that she had, I couldn’t unsee it.

I didn’t know what it was, though I could sense it wasn’t natural.

“Well, let’s get you kids some rooms. Lashul can show you where they are. Dinner will be served to you tonight, but we’ll have something better prepared for tomorrow’s meals.”

I nodded my head, knowing better than to thank a fae... Though I never understood why that had been a lesson Lilith had taught me.

“You don’t want to be indebted to them,” she would say…

And today, I was thankful for that warning.

Thursday, June 18th

Early Afternoon

Sloane practically stomped into the bathroom, all of us observing as she shut the door. Once the shower turned on, we felt her frustration simmer to a low boil. That allowed me to breathe easier, but I wasn’t ready to leave her unattended.

We knew she wouldn’t kill Alania until Vaughn, Freya, and her parents were out of the dungeon and safe. Hopefully, Ruby and Tilly would stay out of the way; but at present, they were wild cards.

Tilly had been described to us as shy and quiet, though she’d been a total bitch to Sloane. Yet, our mate had taken it with a grain of salt, knowing that rumors always made her look like a worse person than she was.

“Did you develop x-ray vision, Mage?” York drawled, snapping his fingers in front of my face.

“No, why?”

The druid narrowed his eyes. “You’re still staring at the bathroom door like you’re in a trance. If you want to go in there so bad, then just do it.”

“I was thinking.”

“Yeah. We saw the smoke billowing from your ears.”

“Fuck off.”

“Go get your girlfriend,” York teased.

I cut my glare at him. “Are you mocking me?”

“Isn’t that what you used to say to me? Fuck off, then. Go get your girlfriend, Druid. I hope she’s a good lay while she lasts.”

Stone snorted.

“Imagine the surprise…” the druid trailed off, holding his hands out. “You gave me a hard time about my girlfriend so many years ago, and now she’s yours too. If you’d have only met her like I mentioned, now that would have been interesting.”

“I wonder how much that would have changed,” I pondered, standing when the water turned off.

“Fuck off, then,” York repeated. “Go get your girlfriend, Mage.”

“Don’t be so bloody cheeky with me, Druid.”

I wasn’t going to get her; I was going to check on her.

Stone tipped his head, feeling the same sadness I was. Unlike the other guys, the demon and I’d had a few days to adjust to her emotional overload after the pith tokens. She blocked as much as she could, but some things she couldn’t hide from us.