Page 29 of To Crave Truly

I ignored him, my attention drawn to the two men in front of me. “What the fuck are you doing, Fenris? You look like you should be in bed.”

“He should be,” Alec chided.

“I’m fine. Just an accident on a routine patrol,” he snapped before fixing me with a gaze filled with too many emotions for me to decipher. “I had to see you.”

His words softened my anger. “Are you really alright.”

He nodded. “I will be. I just need sleep.”

There were bags under his rich brown eyes, and it was easy to see that sleep was the last thing he’d be doing. He looked broken. I wanted to wrap myself around him and tell him everything would be alright. He woke something in me that wanted to reach out and protect him, to comfort him, and take his pain away.

Alec squeezed Fenris’ shoulder before fixing his gaze on me. “I’m sorry you’re in there, Lori. But we need to make sure that you’re safe.”

“I get it.”

“Is it true?” Fenris asked, eyeing me warily. “Did he turn you?”

I swallowed. “Yes.”

He pushed himself up from his chair and placed his hand on the glass. “I’m sorry he did that to you.”

I shrugged. There wasn’t much I could do about it now. All I could do was learn to live with this new part of me and try to make peace with it.

I mirrored Fenris’ hand on the glass. “It’s okay.”

“It’s not okay!” he spat. “When I see him, I’m gonna kill him.”

There was murder in his eyes. It was so at odds with the usual warmth that he exuded. I’d never seen him so angry. I could feel violence simmering under his skin and I didn’t hate it. Neither did my demon. She was swirling in my gut, pushing against the cage she was in.

“How did you escape?” Alec asked, interrupting the dark turn my thoughts had taken.

“We didn’t,” Iver said as he calmly stood leaning against the glad. “Mordecai let us go.”

Alec turned to look at him. “Why?”

“Can’t tell you.”

“If you want to get out of there—”

“Alec,” I interrupted before he released his hound. “We can’t tell you. Mordecai made it so we can’t say anything.”

“The fuck?” Fenris growled.

“Mordecai had Selene spell us so that—” A scream tore itself from my throat as phantom knives sliced at my skin. My legs buckled beneath me, and I fell to the floor, my knees slamming into the white tiles.

“Lori!” Fenris and Alec shouted.

“She’ll be fine in a moment,” Iver said whilst looking at his black fingernails. “That is what happens if we try to tell you anything.”

The lock to my cage clicked and hands wrapped around my shoulders. “Lori, are you alright?”

Fenris knelt on the floor with me, his brow creased with concern.

“I’m okay, are you?” I cupped his cheek with my hand and he winced, like my touch was painful and too much to bear.

He pulled away from me. “Yes, or at least I will be.”

When he let go of my shoulders, I felt the loss of his warmth. “Maybe I can heal you?”

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