AllFreeNovel
Share Us
16
Dark, mottled bruises circled the skin across my neck, a necklace of purples, greens and yellows that I could not remove. I studied them in the reflection of the floor-length mirror, tracing my fingers over the colourful hand marks Gale had left upon me.It hurt to touch, but that didn’t stop me from doing so. Each time my fingers even dusted lightly across the tender skin I inhaled through a hiss.
“Looking at it will not make it go away,” Faenir said.
I tore my concentration from the bruising to Faenir who sat in a grand, deep green velvet chair. Even in the reflection I could make out his cold expression and his frown that had been on full display since I had woken moments before.
“And prey tell what it is you suggest I do?”
“Rest.” His answer came out short and fast.
We were back in Haxton Manor. The last thing I remembered was being laid across the floor in the dark corridor in Evelina, fighting to keep consciousness. My thoughts were a string of disconnected memories that made little sense and only added to the pounding in my head.
“That is easier said than done.” I was restless. My limbs ached with extreme exhaustion, but my mind whirled violently as though entrapped by a storm. “How long have I been out for?”
“Not long enough.” He leaned forward, clearing sleep from his gilded eyes with a lazy swipe of his hand.
When I had woken back inmybed in Haxton, it was to the gentle purring of Faenir as he slept in the very chair he had not yet vacated. Before I had time to even register where I was or remember what had happened his eyes had burst open as my name slipped from his mouth in a gasp.It was a moment of concerned weakness in Faenir that he hid quickly behind a wall of moody temper.
“Please,” he said, gesturing back to the mound of twisted sheets upon the four-poster bed. “Sit. Let me look over your wounds.”
I shook his offer off, pacing before the mirror instead. “I am fine. I… I just can’t make sense of why he would do it.”
“Arlo,” Faenir said, a hint of warning in his voice.
I ignored him, allowing the pain across my throat and the throbbing at the back of my head to intensify alongside my anxious confusion. “Before you even think to scorn me for following after him, don’t waste your breath. I thought Gale was looking for Myrinn, and why else would he have left the room? I only wished to speak with her.”
“Arlo,” Faenir tried again, his voice deepening.
“Gale was following someone, I am sure of it. But—”
“Arlo, sit!” Faenir snapped, half in a shout and a plea. “You have been through a lot and this incessant movement is not going to help. Do not make me force you back into that bed.”
There was something about his warning tone that had my cheeks warming. For an entire moment I lost a grasp on what I was saying.Faenir was standing now, his off-white tunic untied at the collar to reveal lines of hidden muscle. He had rolled his sleeves up to his elbows and left his cloak draped carelessly across the arm of the chair.
“Fine,” I forced out, walking back to the bed like a scorned pup. As I clambered back into the sheets Faenir was beside me, moving the full pillows towards the headboard to create a back support.
For a moment we were so close that his breath tickled across my neck. Our eyes locked. I was certain that moment would have lasted a lifetime if I did not force myself to break his gaze.
“I will do my best to answer your questions, but as you can imagine that even I will be falling short on many. Haldor has yet to send word regarding the inquisition that has been raised.”
“Inquisition?” I said, allowing the unknown word to fill my mouth and familiarise itself in my mind.
“We must find out what happened and why, the inquisition raised will investigate what happened at the ball.”
My throat was equal parts sore and dry. Before I could reach for the glass of water at my bedside it was in Faenir’s hand as he brought it to my lips.
“May I?” he asked softly.
I could have refused and taken the glass from him; it was not that I required help to drink after all. But, as if by instinct, I moved my lips closer to him and it was greeted by the cold kiss of glass.
I drank until it was almost finished, muttering my thanks through glistening, moist lips, lips that Faenir seemed to watch intently until I spoke again.
“How difficult is it to question Gale?” I asked as Faenir put down the glass and returned his focus to me. When he did there was dread in his eyes; it shrunk his dark pupils to mere dots that seemed to disappear among the sea of gold that surrounded them.
“Difficult. Impossible, in fact.”
I could not remember much of what happened, only that Gale had been atop me and the next he had not. But there was something else, another memory that wished to reveal itself through the haze.
