Page 39 of Invidia

I’d ruin her.

Chapter 14

There was an inconvenient fluttering feeling in my throat when I looked at Evrin, standing tall and proud in the daylight, having taken charge of the new Hunters and delivered them here. As much as I desperately wanted to be over him, last night had made it pretty obvious that I wasn’t.

I’d woken up jittery from how horny my dreams had made me. Taking care of myself had been such a time-consuming ordeal that I’d missed breakfast, because one orgasm absolutely hadn’t cut it. My vagina had developed a Pavlovian response to Evrin’s presence, and I wasn’t sure how long it would take to train myself out of it.

But at least I now had a really good distraction to keep me occupied.

“Come on,” I told Sebastian, Lochan, and Cora. “I’ll show you to Elverston House where you’ll be staying.”

“What about our stuff?” Lochan asked.

“I’m sure it’ll be brought along shortly,” Meera said appeasingly. After it had been searched for weapons. Something about Lochan’s smile made me feel uneasy, but it might have just been the borderline blinding veneers. Those things could have lit the way through the in-between like a beacon.

On the other hand, Cora seemed so genuinely happy to be here that I felt bad for being suspicious of Lochan’s intentions. Surely, he wouldn’t have brought his bright-eyed and bushy-tailed little sister here if his motives were malicious.

Sebastian, with his false charm and somehow smug walk, I could definitely do without. But the duke wasn’t my cup of tea, either. Verity had strange taste in men.

“So,” Cora began, bouncing slightly with each step as we made our way through the gardens toward Elverston House. While we weren’t being obviously followed, I had no doubt there was someone shadowing us. “What’s it like here? Are you happy? Do you have a significant other? What do you eat? Do you miss your phone?”

I’d gotten so used to comfortable silence living with just Meera, that it took my brain a moment to process the bombardment of words.

“Definitely not to the last one,” I laughed. I’d never been a fan of my phone even in the human realm, and I’d been living as off-grid as I could manage before I’d made the move here, so the adjustment hadn’t been too difficult for me to make. “I’m happy. I’m dating, still finding my feet. There are plenty of food options, though, they are mostly meat-based. Meera is working on a vegetable garden. It’s coming along really well.”

Meera shot me a small, grateful smile, though I could see that she had shrunk in on herself slightly with the new arrivals. I had no doubt she was going to vanish into the garden the moment it was socially acceptable for her to leave, and that would be the last I’d see of her for hours.

“Wow,” Cora whispered, staring up at Elverston House as we turned off the main path, heading up the smaller one that led to the front doors. “This is where we’re staying?”

“This is where we’re staying?” her brother repeated, far less enthusiastically. “I thought that Hunters were supposed to be all special and valued here. This place is a ruin.”

“Come now, Lochan,” Sebastian laughed, though it was in a very inauthentic, salesman-on-the-golf-course kind of way. “It might be nicer on the inside.”

“It’s not,” I replied cheerfully. “But it’s a private residence within walking distance of the palace—regular walking, not shadow walking, so we can get here without assistance. That’s not usual in the shadow realm. Geographically, things are often pretty spread out, since distance isn’t an obstacle for Shades. No Shades are permitted to enter the grounds of Elverston House, so this area is a safe haven of sorts—just for us.” I shrugged. “It needs a little love, but we’ve been working on making it more comfortable.”

I’d gotten more defensive about it than I’d intended to, but I think something about the grand, dilapidated building sort of spoke to me.

It just needed some love.

Ten out of ten, could relate.

“I, er, don’t suppose Verity lives here?” Sebastian asked hopefully.

“No,” I said flatly. “Prince Damen wasn’t joking—don’t let Verity’s mate hear you so much as speak her name, or he will turn you into shadows. Whatever you thought you saw of Verity in the human realm, you didn’t. Not the real her. She has a life here, she’s happy here, and she did what she had to do to get back here. Do you understand?”

He swallowed loudly. “I understand.”

Meera coughed lightly, probably a little shocked at my bluntness, while I side-eyed Sebastian for a little longer so he knew I was serious. If I was being gracious, I would accept that he didn’t know how permanent and unbreakable a mating bond was. That he didn’t fully realize that he had no shot with Verity, if that’s what he was even hoping for. But I wasn’t feeling gracious. Honestly, I’d been in a weirdly foul mood all day, even with the orgasms, and I couldn’t seem to snap out of it. PMS, probably.

“We gathered as much,” Lochan said evenly. “That Verity had perhaps misled us,” he clarified.

“Outwitted, more like,” Cora laughed, nudging her brother out of the way so she could head inside right after me. She looked at the high, arched ceilings and stone floor with the same awe that I’d felt when I first came here. Like she was seeing something magical and filled with potential, and it sparked the memory of that feeling within me as well. The weight of uncertainty and heartbreak and disappointment had been weighing on me, making me second-guess my decisions. But moving to the shadow realm had been a good one. And the pain I’d felt recently was kind of better than not feeling anything. In a weird way, it was kind of reassuring to know that I could get out of my own head long enough to feel so strongly about someone else that their absence could hurt me.

“Two of the rooms upstairs—Astrid’s and Verity’s old ones—are cleared out and ready for new occupants,” I said, mostly thinking out loud. “We’ll have to open up another one.”

“I’ll get the cleaning supplies,” Meera volunteered, veering off at the base of the stairs while I led the trio up, vaguely giving them a guided tour, though there wasn’t that much to say. Most of the rooms were still closed off to minimize the amount of maintenance we had to do.

Cora took Astrid’s old room, and Lochan went into Verity’s. The afternoon passed quickly as all five of us worked to make up beds and clear a dust-coated bedroom for Sebastian’s use. The luggage was deposited at the boundary line at some point, and if anything was missing from their bags, none of them mentioned it while they unpacked. I liked to hope that if they’d been carrying weapons, one of the Guard would have let Meera and I know for our own safety, so I assumed that hadn’t been the case.

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