Page 148 of The Blood Witch

Jasper laughed.

“How are you holding up?” he asked. His hand stroked down her back, rubbing soothing circles over her.

“Jasper… you’re the one who was hurt,” Fey reminded him. “Not me.”

“Well, sure,” he huffed and shifted on the mattress. “But that doesn’t mean you don’t get to be hurt, too. We already know I’m hurt. But… How are you? Are you okay?”

“No,” she admitted, cuddling closer to him. “But I will be. When you’re better.”

She lost herself for a while in the feeling of him pressed against her, in the comfort of his touch along her back.

“Do you know…” Jasper trailed off, voice breaking. “Do you know what happened to Vivian?”

Fey swallowed.

“She’s alive,” she told him. Jasper released a shaky breath. “Kallista did… something to her. I don’t understand what. But she’s safe, for now. They have her in a cell, in Lunairea.”

His confused frown almost pulled a smile from her. “The soldier’s quarters, behind the palace. She’ll be safe there. Until… until the council figures out what to do with her.”

Jasper nodded slowly.

“Do you think they’ll let me visit her?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” Fey admitted.

“This was all my fault,” Jasper whispered. Fey sat up to protest, but he kept going, lips set in a thin line. “I should have known something was happening with her. I should have helped her; I should have done… something.”

“You did everything you could, Jasper,” Fey said. “You didn’t know?—”

“Ishouldhave known,” Jasper insisted. He swallowed hard andclosed his eyes. “I was supposed to protect her, Fey. And… I fucked that up. She needed me, and I didn’t even notice.”

His chest shuddered as he took a trembling breath.

Fey didn’t know what to say. Curling up against him again, Fey just held him and let him mourn.

After a while, his arms came up to circle her again. He squeezed her tight against his body. They lay there together, holding one another, as the silence stretched on and on.

“So…” Fey said finally, sliding her hand over his chest. “Mates, huh?”

Jasper stiffened, ever so slightly, under her touch. The only indication he’d heard.

“Alastair told me last night,” Fey murmured, drawing patterns over his chest with her fingertip. “Shouted it, really, when Alice threatened to make him leave. Said he’d break her neck if she tried to keep your mates from you. But… he didn’t really explain it. Or what it means.”

Jasper remained tense under her touch.

“It’s a Shifter thing,” he told her in a gruff voice. “Not all of them, but… Wolves, and… some of the others.”

Fey waited for him to continue, her hands stilling.

“And?” she prompted.

He shifted uneasily against the mattress. “And… it’s hard to explain. It’s like… being made for someone. Like you’re a part of them, a piece of them that was missing.”

He went quiet again.

“Is that how it feels for you?” Fey asked, curious. “Like you found a missing piece?”

Jasper laughed.

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