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Tessa had been terrified of Malachi. Terrified ofme.
But now, that seemed like a lifetime ago. Things could change. Feelings could change.
Tessa didn’t say anything, but her eyes darted between me and Malachi, who still stood behind me. That’s when I noticed my father huddled in the corner of the room.
“You brought them here?” I asked Malachi without looking at him.
“They aren’t safe at home. I figured you would–”
“Thank you,” I interrupted. “Thank you for bringing them.”
I couldn’t see Malachi, but I felt his breath as he exhaled slowly, just inches behind me in the darkness. “I’ll leave you all to get reacquainted, then,” he said.
And then the door was shutting behind me. A cool breeze tickled my skin where he had just been standing.
“You’re still alive,” Tessa whispered. “I–I thought you might be dead.”
I took a deep, calming breath and stepped forward, closer to my sister. “I’m still alive,” I responded, trying to be as gentle as possible.
“Good,” she replied. She folded her hands in front of her and glanced down at her feet. “I…I wouldn’t want you to die.”
I shouldn’t have felt relieved by that statement, but I did. “That’s good,” was all I could manage to say.Really, Jade?
My father snored loudly from the corner. “He’s been sleeping?”
“Pretty much since we arrived here. Although he spent the first few hours yelling about being kidnapped.”
“Kidnapped?”
Tessa took a long breath and stepped forward, letting the dim light of the lantern hit her face. She looked older. Harsher.
Not the innocent, naive girl I had left back home.
“It was the middle of the night. They tried to tell us they were helping and that they were taking us to you, but he wouldn’t listen.”
I looked over at my father. The man had become a stranger to me. He looked much older now, even though we had only been apart for a short time. Deep wrinkles lined his forehead and his cheeks had sunken into his face, causing his cheekbones to jut out much sharper than they had before.
He looked much older than he was. He looked…sad.
I cleared my throat and turned my attention back to Tessa. “I can’t say I’m surprised. He’s never exactly been a great listener.”
A long moment of silence passed between us. Tessa looked at me, drawing her eyes over each of my features. It was as if she were really seeing me for the first time.
“We missed you, you know,” she said. “When you came to see us back home we…we were surprised. And the fae prince was…”
“I know,” I interrupted, recalling the details of Malachi pinning our father to the ground outside our front door. “I didn’t mean for anything like that to happen. I didn’t mean to scare you.”
Tessa broke our eye contact and glanced at the floor once more. “It was unexpected. That’s all. We didn’t even know if you were alive.”
“I know,” I said again, softer this time. I wanted to reach my hand out and grab hers, but I resisted. I’d been doing a lot of that lately, it seemed. “Malachi…he’s not as bad as he seems. I promise you. He’s kept me safe this whole time. He’ll do the same to you.”
Tessa nodded slowly. “You’re different now,” she stated. “You seem like you’ve changed.”
The words pierced me like a dagger to the chest. “Iamdifferent,” I whispered. I fought to keep my voice steady against the wave of emotions that rushed forward. I had changed. Not because I wanted to, though. No. I changed because Ihadto. Because Ihadto survive. I changed forus. ForTessa.
For myself.
“A lot has happened since I married Malachi,” I said. I chose my words carefully. “I’ve come so close to death I should feel lucky for even standing here right now.”
