Page 73 of The Fae Lord

What if I’m playing a dangerous game and I’m about to lose?

My aim is to give her time to think, and then prove she can trust me when I return to her. But what if I’ve misjudged it? My mind is so clouded by lust for her and the need for her to believe me that I have no idea whether I’m doing the right thing.

I feel like the old version of me; the one who was cool, and calculated, and knew exactly what games to play and how to play them in order to get what he wanted.

But that does not mean I’m right.

I sink down into the chair by the broken window. The sun is only just rising. I reach for the whisky, then change my mind and set it down again. Instead, I pick up my mother’s journal. And while I wait for the right moment to retrieve Alana, I read her words again. And again. And again.

I speak them loudly enough that they carry up in the air towards Alana.

I know she can hear them.

And I know that all she can do in this moment is listen.

THIRTY

Kayan

Iam curled beside Rosalie. She cannot feel me or hear me, but I tell myself that perhaps I am giving her some comfort.

She cried for hours after her husband left. The fact he is her husband makes me sick to my stomach, and I know that shouldn’t be possible.

I hate him.

That shouldn’t be possible either.

And I know now that as soon as I see Alana, I need to ask for her help. She is powerful. She has magic that the Shadowkind believe can destroy Lord Eldrion, so she sure as hell can help me free Rosalie from this hell she’s living in.

I have never blamed Alana for what happened to me. I didn’t blame her for my death, or for my powers being taken. But if I have to use those things as leverage to make her help me, by the stars, I will.

Watching Rosalie cry, I wondered whether the spirit realm had made a mistake. Alana seems to be doing a perfectly fine job of guiding herself, so perhaps they were wrong. Perhaps I was meant to come back for Rosalie. Not Alana.

I know that’s not true. I feel it, like a lead weight, in the pit of my stomach. Even though she told me to go, I am Alana’s guide. But there is nothing in the rules that says I can’t help Rosalie, too.

If there was, I wouldn’t be here. They wouldn’t let me.

I am watching Rosalie fall into a fitful sleep when something snags in my mind. A tugging sensation that pulls me upright and makes me shiver from head to toe. Alana?

It can’t be. If she was calling me, I’d hear her voice.

But something isn’t right.

I stand and walk over to the window. I don’t want to leave. Rosalie is clutching the torn pieces of the sketch that her husband destroyed. I never knew she could draw. All the years we’ve known each other, and loved each other, and I never saw that piece of her.

We did not have enough time.

I look out at the expansive grounds of the house Rosalie now lives in. The old Sunborne fae bought her at auction for a reason, and although I’m not letting myself think about it – I know exactly what it was.

He needs a mother for his children.

She is to be lady of the manor house, but nothing more than a paid breeding mare for his pleasure. Paid in the trappings of an extravagant life.

This is what I thought Eldrion wanted with Alana when we were first taken – when he gave her chambers instead of locking her in the cellar with the rest of us. I was wrong. He wanted her for what she is, and because he was seeking answers to questions that sit heavy in his heart.

When he killed me, I saw a flicker – just a small flicker – of doubt in his eyes.

I remember it clearly because I thought he might change his mind. He hated me in that moment, but that wasn’t the reason he was killing me. He hated me because he had to kill me.

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