Page 200 of Mama Si's Paradise

“Valentine,please.Come on—please, stop this. Please,” I begged, even though I already knew it was a lost cause.

“Be careful of the others, though. They usually don’t dare to cross Grey, but you saw what happened this morning. They might be willing to risk their necks if it means getting close to you. It’s nothing personal—just instinct, you understand? The forbidden has a way for getting to even the most noble man—and my brothers arenotnoble.”

“Valentine, come on. You can’t do this!” I held onto his wrists for dear life.

“Just be careful. Keep your eyes open,” he said, and it felt like he was saying goodbye.

Fuck, I didn’t want to hear it.

“What about Emerald? What about what I heard in Faeries’ Aerie? Have you talked to someone about it? How about you focus onthatinstead of challenging your own brother?!”

His face changed instantly. “Sunshine, I told you—forget about it. There are rebels everywhere in the Isles. They’ll try to overthrow us, and then halfway through they’ll realize it’s impossible and they’ll give up or get caught. There’s no need to worry,” he said, almost in a breath.

“Except yousoundafraid.” I squinted my eyes at him, waiting for a reaction.

He laughed. “I’m not afraid of some common rebels who have nothing better to do with their lives but pretend they have a higher calling,” he told me. “I’m not even afraid to challenge Grey.”

Ice-cold chills rushed down my back. “They didn’t seem like common rebels, Valentine. They were talking aboutme.They knew who I was. They knew I had the ring, when Genevieve told me it was undetectable by anyone or anything. Theyknew.” And now that I was thinking about it again, I was terrified.

How had I forgotten about Emerald and those two men? How had I forgotten that I’d run from them and came back here?

“Listen to me.” Valentine raised my head until I met his eyes again. “Even if they are not just common rebels, Romin will handle them. He always has. He’s good at what he does, okay? There’s no need to worry about this.”

“But we have to tell someone. We have to?—”

“And they’ll tell you the same thingI’mtelling you—do not worry about things that have nothing to do with you,” he cut me off.

Except it did have something to do with me, didn’t it?Emerald had been talking aboutme.I’d heard her with my own ears.

“I have one last thing to ask you, though,” Valentine said.

“Of course,” I said, holding onto his hands.

Fuck, it hurt to just look at him. To doubt everything I knew. Everything Ididn’tknow.

“Play for me one more time?”

My eyes closed and another wave of tears hit me, spilling down my cheeks. “As long as you want.”

“Good. Now stop crying and sit on that bench, Sunshine. I promise you…” he said, leaning closer and closer until the tips of our noses touched, and he was smiling. He really wasn’t worried in the least. “I promise you that I will be just fine.”

Every word he said rang true. I had no choice but to believe him.

But even when he jumped off the stage and sat in the middle of the auditorium just like always, and I sat in front of the piano, stretching my fingers, I still couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong. That the world was going to end soon, and it would be more terrifying than I could ever imagine.

I played for Valentine anyway, and with each new note I reached, I prayed with all my being that we all made it out alive through whatever was going on here.

Valentine didn’t walkme back to my room, and Shadow was nowhere to be seen, either. It looked like I was no longer in need of protection, so he didn’t waste time with me. Probably out there enjoying his life instead of babysitting me.

Good for him. I just wished I hadn’t felt so damn sad about it.

I begged Valentine to reconsider another three timesbefore we said goodnight. I begged him to withdraw the challenge, and he no longer even told me he wouldn’t. He only smiled and said that I shouldn’t worry so much, that I should rest instead. That I shouldn’t bother with thinking about Emerald and those men, and what they said about me.

But I did bother. I did worry—so much it made me sick.

Hours later, I pulled the window of my room open to get some air and to let the small raindrops fall on my face. I was suffocating and I was burning with the need to go find Grey, but I also didn’t want to bother him. He hadn’t come back to me, so he was probably preparing for the challenge at dawn. Or maybe he was out drinking or something? Maybe resting?

Where the hell is he?

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