AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Dead. It's still hard for me to wrap my mind around.
"After you," he says, his grin now falling away, as he waves us forward.
Still feeling irritated, I allow Ann and Dusk to stagger in, followed by Onyx, and then I come through at the rear, eyeing this Rayne critically as I do. When the boulder rumbles back into place, leaving only a small amount of space for Rayne's hands, I try not to feel irritated that he seems to know how things are done around here. Because that probably means this ghost has been haunting our Ann and watching us.
Kneeling down, I stoke the embers of our fire higher, carefully, then add fuel to the flames until it's crackling once more. My body still aches, but not like it did right after I’d been healed, which I’m grateful for. At least I don’t have to appear weak in front of this man.
Ann has helped Dusk to lay down on his blankets. She pulls off his bloody, torn shirt, then goes to a bucket of water we keep in one corner and begins to slowly clean the blood off of him, staring at his chest as if to check for more damage. Dusk's eyes close, and he lies back on the blankets, his face tense.
My mind goes back to him during the battle. He was marked for death. He should have died. And now, because of our Ann, he's lying down being touched by the woman he loves. It's good, but it's confusing.
"Onyx? Phantom? How are your injuries?" She doesn't look up from where I sit, watching her.
Onyx signs,What does she want me to say? There's always pain after battles.
I sign back to him,She wants to help us.
So that she won't feel guilty when she leaves with herrealmate?Onyx's words are harsh, filled with an anger I understand.
He stares at me, waiting for my answer, maybe my reassurance, but I don't have it right now. My mind is still on the battle, almost as if it can’t handle what this man means to our already chaotic world.
"Is there anything to eat?" Rayne asks.
Onyx's glare slides to the man in our cave, and I feel my own annoyance rising as I rub at my sore arm. Rayne doesn'tbelonghere. And the more I think about it, the more I realize that I hate that he’s here. I hate that he’s the master of her heart. Hersupposedmate. Because he'snotany more, shouldn’t be any more.We’reher mates—Onyx, Dusk, and I.
This is the fucking last thing we need after a battle.
Rayne's pale brown eyes move to me, and his casual demeanor changes a bit. "Anything at all? I'm starving. At this point I'd eat some berries if I had to."
If hehadto? Is this how all fae royals are?Ann was never this way.
Still, I rise and go to one corner. I unwrap some of our jerkied meat and throw a piece. It hits him in the chest, and he barely manages to catch it before it hits the ground.
"Uh, thanks."
I grunt in response, but I really want to tell him to just leave. That he isn't needed here.
"So, what happened to the rest of those guys?" Rayne asks, biting into the jerky, wincing, and chewing slowly.
The other shadow beasts in the battle against our father are back at the main cave, healing, recuperating, benefiting from tried and true medicine that had been passed from age to age, administered by the elders. Those who weren’t injured are patrolling, watching for trolls who escaped the battle, who weren’t killed by the blinding golden light Ann used to kill anything in her path. But Rayne should know this if he's been haunting us, shouldn't he?
When none of us answer, Ann finally looks up and seems to realize there's tension in the air. Her mouth pulls into a thin line, and she says, "They'll be at the main cave, healing."
Rayen nods. "Wouldn't it be smarter if we were with them? You know, strength in numbers."
Onyx huffs and goes to his belongings. He grabs another rag, removes his shirt, and uses some water to begin to wipe himself down, ignoring the man in the room. A man I wish I could ignore too.
"This is the way we've set things up." There, I answered him.
Rayne lifts a brow but seems to realize we aren't in the mood for his chit chat. Instead, he positions himself against a wall, then slides to the ground, resting as if he were the one to take on our enemies. A small voice in the back of my head reminds me that he's using the body of someone who is probably feeling frail and weak without eating for so long and only drinking the little bit of water that our healer could get into him, but a louder part of me just feels annoyed by everything the man does.
"Well, Dusk will be okay, but he could use some more healing," Ann says, and she sounds relieved. "I'll try to use my powers again when I can. Right now, I still feel a bit weak."
In response, Onyx silently brings her a water skin and some jerky. She thanks him with a smile, but shares it with Dusk before she has any herself. He drinks the water eagerly, then begins to gnaw on the half of the jerky she handed him. It's almost enough to make me smile. We tend to care for our women first, but Dusk would never have been able to turn down something Ann offered him.
She begins to eat and drink slowly, and the firelight illuminates her face in a way that reminds me of when she used her powers. Her remarkable, unexpected powers. Her ability that saved us all and might be the key to winning this war, if we can figure out a way to harness it without putting her in danger.
“What was that light?” I don’t mean to blurt out the words. But now they’re out there, waiting for clarification so she doesn’t step around them. “The one you used to obliterate the trolls, the one you used to heal us.”
