AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I spoke up for her. “Mare hasn’t decided what consequences she wants to enforce yet. When she does, she’ll let you know.”
The men waited a long moment before they split up. The traitors went back to the place they’d been gathered a few minutes earlier, while Priel and Ervo returned to their previous positions even more intense-like than they had before.
“You’re good at that,” Mare murmured to me. “Not letting people walk all over you.”
I laughed humorlessly. “For this ten minutes. As soon as shit goes down, I freeze up. Probably because of my past.”
“What happened to you?” she asked. “You had so many scars.
My throat swelled, but I admitted, “My parents were very overprotective, so I didn’t get out much. They arranged a marriage for me, but we were betrayed. I was in the car, and the bastard I was supposed to marry told me he was going to kill me and make a statement out of it. He was so proud.”
I shook my head a little. “There were two options. Accept my fate, or jump out of the vehicle. They thought I was a scared little mouse, so they hadn’t bothered barring the doors or anything. I jumped. And then I survived in the forest, until my dad’s people finally found me. Spent a long time in the hospital, afterward. Nothing they could do about the scars.”
The horror had returned to Mare’s eyes. “I’m so sorry.”
“You don’t need to apologize for something you had nothing to do with.” I looked away from her, staring out at the scenery again. Vevol was so beautiful, with its strange trees and rocky, rough mountains.
“Still. That’s just… damn. We knew you were strong, but that’s next level.”
“If you were in the situation, you would’ve done the same thing.”
“I don’t know if I would’ve,” she admitted.
“Then you need to believe in yourself more. You’re stronger than you realize. If you can’t sleep now, focus on getting even stronger so that if something like this ever happens again, you can protect yourself. You’re a damndragon, Mare.”
She was silent for a few minutes before she finally said, “I need to learn how to shift.”
“You do,” I agreed. “Calian probably knows a dragon or two who could teach you.”
She sighed heavily. “I hope so.”
It was time to change the subject.
“Did I tell you about the meeting with Naomi?” I asked her.
When she said I had not, we spent the next hour discussing how things would change when we created our own neutral land, never bringing up the fae women we would need to retrieve to make that happen.
By the time that hour wound down, Mare looked so exhausted that I didn’t think she’d remain upright for much longer.
When Ervo asked, Priel pointed him toward one of the community caves, so Mare could sleep while he watched over and protected her.
She didn’t argue, following him to the cave after giving me a quick hug.
Time passedand Priel continued pacing, shooting glares at the group of hellhounds every few minutes even though they had yet to try pushing the boundaries again.
I started to wonder if Clevv was ever going to come out.
The man was at least a little insane, but that didn’t tell me what would happen when he emerged. If anything, it made me less certain about whatever he was going to do next.
My yawns began, and over time, grew longer and larger.
When I curled up on the ground, Priel snapped his teeth and scooped me up.
He hauled me over to the cave where Ervo was watching out for Mare, and called into the opening, “I need you to take a turn on watch.”
There was a long pause, and then Ervo came climbing out with a snoring Mare draped over his shoulder and one of the massive beanbag things clenched tightly in his fist. It dragged behind him a bit because of its size, but his gigantic muscles didn’t seem to have a problem with that.
“Kill any of them you want,” Priel told the phoenix, adjusting his grip on me. My head pressed to his chest, and he rubbed my back lightly. “I’ll listen for Clevv.”
