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His voice is gravel. “Ann of the light fae.”
"Yes?" I don't know what to say. My gaze goes to Dusk, but he has his back turned to me. And I don't care about Auero or what he has to say, I just want to speak to Dusk. I want to know that he's okay and that whatever just fell apart between us can still be fixed.
“Tell me about the light you summoned. Tell me how you did it.” These aren’t gentle commands. He wants to know, and I should be fearful of whatever consequence comes when I don’t have an answer, but I can’t. Because that kind of power, it’s feral. I can’t control it, I know that, and I'm afraid that one day it’s going to control me.
I don’t even know if it was me controlling it. Not really. Because if it was me, why didn't I have this ability before? Why didn't I use it when the academy was under attack?
I shake my head. “I don’t know. I just wanted to protect my men... and the light came.”
He sighs, disappointed. Disillusioned. Unhappy.Sorry, big fella. The truth is the truth.
He looks at me, from my hair to my toes, and when his eyes find my face again, they aren’t happier or kinder. “If the shadow king attacks again, if he brings another army, we won’t make it unless the prophecy is fulfilled.”
Oh, the prophecy.I sigh. This is an old argument. Everyone here seems to believe that a mating bond between me and my men is needed to secure the lives of the shadow beasts outside the shadow realm, to win this war. It’s a lot of responsibility to hand to me. My sigh is my only response.
“Ann, we have some time before the shadow king regroups and builds his forces, but the next time he comes, it will be the end. The last time.” He eyes me again, one brow up this time. It’s a look Onyx has mastered, and now I don’t wonder where he learned it. “Are you ready to create the mate bond with Dusk, Phantom, and Onyx? To be the savior of the shadow Solemus?”
I’m not. I can’t. The slightest shake of my head is enough to make Dusk huff and puff like he wants to blow the cave down.
“Her true mate is back from the dead. He’s in Adrik’s body.” Dusk is quite the news anchor and the words ring in my ears. I can’t imagine how it sounds to the elder, but his face blanches, so I don’t really have to ask.
“Does this mean you aren’t going to fight with us against the shadow king?”
I don’t have an answer. I don’t want to answer him about this or the prophecy because the future, mine specifically, is uncertain.
Auero turns, shaking his head as he walks out.
His frustration is a fine commentary, fitting to my very existence.
But when I look at Dusk, he simply goes to his bedroll, lies down, and turns his back to me. The urge to lay with him, to touch him, is there, but I push the feeling down. Instead, I wrap my arms around myself and sit against the wall, feeling lost.
Figuring out who I love, who I care for, who I feel a mate bond with is more than enough pressure. But doing it while being told that my decision might impact the fate of these people and the world itself? Well, I'm going to need some sleep if I have any hope of untangling this mess.
FOUR
Rayne
I feel like a giant asshole,and it makes absolutely no sense. And yet, I can't seem to forget the expression on Phantom's face when he threatened to kill me. He looked like a man desperate to keep the woman he loved. A desperation I'd felt myself many times since my death.
And I hate that I can relate to this strange man. Well, to all three of the men, with their eyes filled with love every time they look at my mate. It's like seeing my own emotions, which should make me feel connected with them, and it does, but it also gives me the sense that we're in competition with each other.
But there's no competing with fated mates... at least, that's how I'd always understood it. Ann is mine. I am hers. Yes, fae can have multiple fated mates, but the men usually have a bond that makes them a unit, and then they together fall in love with a woman. It's true these men have a unit themselves, but I'm on the outside of that.
In my experience, I've never seen anything like this.
But then, there's a lot that hasn't made sense since I died.
Finding a stream in the quiet woods, a stream I'd seen Ann and the men bathe in before, I take off the warrior's clothes I'm wearing and step into the water. A shiver rolls up my spine. The morning sun has just barely made its way over the horizon, and the water still holds the chill of the night. But I don't care. I just want to feel clean.
No, I want to feel likeme. Like I did before.
Naked, I wade deeper into the water and go under the surface. I scrub at my hair and body, trying to wash away the scents on this body. The general feeling of misuse. When I'd first awoke in it, I'd just felt... like myself. Like I finally had a way for Ann to see me and speak to me once more. But the more I use this body, the more I feel like it isn't my own. It's massive compared to my other body in all ways, taller, more muscular, and somehow less... regal, as dumb as that sounds.
And now that some of the shock of "coming back to life," has worn off... I feel strange. I keep thinking back to my time as a ghost. Before Ann was taken by the shadow beasts, I remember very little. That I was murdered in the dark tunnels beneath the academy, yes, but not much beyond that. And then, Ann was taken. It was like the dim world I was in, where time seemed to have no meaning, was gone, and I was just left to shadow her.
But that's all I was. A shadow. A part of me always knew that eventually I'd go to wherever a ghost went when they were done with whatever was anchoring them to this earth. My heart broke watching Ann get taken. It broke me even more that I couldn't do anything to ease her fear of the shadow beasts. But even while she feared them, even while something inside of me raged at not being able to protect my mate, I recognized myself in those men. I saw the way they looked at her and knew they could no more hurt her than I could.
I, well, I watched her falling in love with them. And in my ghostly form, I felt confusion. This war, this danger, was not part of our world. Ann should have been safe, with her family or at the academy, not dragged into the woods with a dark shadow waiting to consume us all. It felt unfair after all she'd been through, and a part of me blamed these men for putting her in this situation.
