Page 217 of Mama Si's Paradise

“Fall, talk to me. What are you thinking?”

“Valentine,” I whispered. “Does he know that as well? Does he know what happens when a bride leaves before the Blood Call?”

“Of course,” he said without missing a beat.

Of course.

Valentine had told Genevieve to give me this ring. Valentine had taken me through the mirror into Faeries’ Aerie and had basically convinced me that the ring would take me back home unscathed.

Valentine had known. He’d wanted to fucking kill me.

“There’s something…not right with that boy. I don’t know what he told you, but he’s not to be trusted,” Grey said. “I swear it, it’s not my jealousy speaking.”

Of course, it wasn’t. It wasn’t his fucking jealousy—he just knew his brother. I had only thoughtIdid.

“I knew it first the day of the offering,” he continued, and I flinched.The offering.Mama Si. “The moment we saw you, we chose you, and Storm claimed you to the others, as he should. But that little thing…that tiny dragon cheated. He bit you before Storm could.” He seemed pissed off and confused about it at the same time. “I mean, why doesn’t hegrow? Why is he still so small? Dragons grow at an incredible rate, within weeks.”

I couldn’t reply because my mind was busy with other things. Other horrible—horriblethings.

“My God, Grey. He almost killed me,” I said instead, sitting up on the bed, not really seeing anything.

“What?”

“He almost killed me. Valentine, he…he almostkilledme.” By offering me my freedom. By tricking me into thinking I could walk away from the Isles and live my life the way I wanted to. By tricking me into thinking thathewas sacrificing himself for me.

“He wouldn’t dare. To hurt a bride, to even pose a threat to her in any way means instant banishment,” Grey reminded me, and I laughed.

Oh, how I laughed my heart out.

Of course, it did—buthewould never be responsible for my death. He would never tell anyone that it was him who took me to Faeries’ Aerie. Nobody would fucking know—they’d just assume I ran away. It wouldn’t be too hard to believe considering I’d made no secret of the fact that I wanted to go back home since the day I arrived here.

“Talk to me, Fall,” said Grey, grabbing my face in his hands. He’d sat up, too, his wings half spread to the sides.

He looked fucking majestic—and I couldn’t stop laughing.

Valentine was not who he pretended to be.

Mama Si hadn’t been who she’d pretended to be, either.

What about Grey?

“Someone’s planning something,” I thought I whispered. “Someone’s planning something, and I think Valentine is planning something, too.”

“I wouldn’t be surprised. It’s not just him—it’s everyone,” he said. “Even Genevieve—you should never trust her, Fall.”

To hear him say that about his own mother… I shook my head, at a loss for words for a moment.

He smiled sadly.

“I know what you’re thinking. Believe me, I know how I sound.” He closed his eyes for a moment, as if he were gathering himself. “I’ve never told anyone this before, but I’m sure she convinced my father to challenge me when he did,knowinghe’d lose.”

White noise in my ears for a moment.

Words Genevieve had said to me that day in her room came back to me—I knew Grey would be challenged by his father—and win—since he was five years old.

My God…

“She is part of the reason why my magic is stronger than that of my brothers, why it comes so much more easily to me. Some humans have more affinity to magic than others naturally, and that was Genevieve’s case. Since the beginning she was stronger than any other bride in the records. She passed that power onto me when she had me, and she knew it since the day I was born.”

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