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There’s so much to consider.
My mind shifts.If it was real, did we really kiss? Did we really bond? Might she see things differently when we get her back?
“If we are, maybe I can communicate with her and find out where she is.”
My mind races. I’ll find a way.
Cobar gets a strange look and starts shaking his head. “Wait, she doesn’t have any magic, though.” He bites his lip. “If she had so little fae in her that she was working as a maid, believing she was human, there’s no way she has the powers to do something like that.”
My shoulders fall, and my chest aches. He’s right, of course, he’s right. “Then, it was just a dream.”
The way joy just slips out of my fingers is almost crippling. I need her to be safe. I need some idea about how to find her. No matter how crazy.
She needs to be back with us where she belongs and whoever the fuck took her has to pay.
“Do you think she’s okay?” Cobar’s voice is barely audible as he turns to the rising sun, studying it with an expression so bleak it hurts to see.
It’s strange for him to be this serious, but I feel it too. We’re all her mates, so the hurt and the pain I feel is universal among us. Without Cassia, a deep and terrible emptiness is expanding in our hearts. If we don’t find her, all we’ll be is emptiness, never capable of love or affection again. We’ll continue on for our long lives like ghosts, empty shells of the men we were before. We can marry. We can fuck. But no one will ever compare to our mate.
She has to be okay. There’s no other way she can be.
“We’re mates,” I begin. “We’d feel it if something, if something…” If she died.
And we would. We would know the instant she died, because our souls would die right along with hers. Maybe we’d go on living, but not really, not the way life is meant to be lived.
I’m so fucking grateful we haven’t felt anything. It means she’s alive. We just have to find her.
Suddenly, pain shoots through my skull. I bite the corner of my cheek to draw myself back from the pain, to focus on the present, and then I funnel my magic to the barrier around our kingdom. It takes a lot of magic. More magic than I was prepared for.The damn demons are getting stronger, their numbers growing.But after a moment, I feel the barrier strengthen, and then I can breathe again.
Beside me, Cobar drops his hand from his head, and our eyes meet. Sharing pain like this is such a strange thing. It connects us on a level that’s soul-deep. That makes us feel like more than brothers.
Cobar’s big blue eyes are filled with sadness. “Would it be okay if I hung out for a little while? Then, I’ll try to get a little more sleep.” He takes a deep breath. “I just don’t want to be alone.”
I wrap an arm around him, and he leans his head on my shoulder. Relief sings through his body, and I almost smile. Cobar was always this way as a boy. The cruelest thing you could do was leave him alone. And now that he doesn’t have an army of women marching out of his bed, I imagine he’s struggling, left alone with his own thoughts.
“What do you think of Sulien’s plan?” Cobar asks, breaking the silence.
I sigh, feeling every muscle in my body tighten. Ah, yes, the plan. It’s all we have, even if it’s far from good. “It’s reckless, but it might be the only way.”
He leans into me a little harder, an almost hug. “It’s going to be the answer,” and I suspect he’s telling himself more than me.
SEVEN
Cassia
I need to stay focused and put one foot in front of the other, just like I’ve been doing all night. Even though it’s hard. My feet are numb, and they barely move as I drag them along, but I can’t afford to stop. If I do, I’ll get caught again, because if they’re smart, and the jury is out on that, those assholes will still be hunting me. So, for now, my job is to put as much distance between me and that troop of idiots as possible.
The only noise is the sound of my feet trudging along the forest floor as the sun rises and the little sounds of the animals welcoming the dawn. There’s no sound of mankind, either the ones who are hunting me, or ones who could help me. It’s just me, alone, desperate to survive.
What’s worse, my path has been lined with death. Dead animals. Bones. I’ve never seen so much in my life. It’s like the damn things are flocking to me. Lining my path through the woods.
It’s fucking eerie, bringing to memory the words of the tree elf in a way I hate.
I gasp as motion catches my eye. A bird’s body hangs above me, tangled in some thin branches, moving just a little more than the wind should shift the branches.
“Creepy. So fucking creepy,” I whisper, then wrap my arms around myself.
How did this end up being my life?One day I’m a maid, the next I’m the mate to four fae princes, then kidnapped, and now I’ve escaped into a strange forest filled with death. It’s all so much that sometimes I just want to throw myself on the ground and sob, maybe even throw a tantrum like a child.
