Page 14 of The Eighth Isle

Valentine kept his head down, his hands folded behind his back, and he had his eyes closed as he clenched his jaw so hard I could see it from a distance.

When he felt me there, he finally raised his head. Our eyes met—and it had happened so rarely that I’d despised a being with my everything the way I did him in those moments.

“What the fuck have you done?!” I whispered, unable to hold myself back as angry tears gathered in my eyes.

I blinked them back because I wasn’t going to cry in front of them today. Not for as long as I could help it.

The others were already turning to me, and Tristian flinched at the sight of my face, which I took as a small victory. Not that it mattered, anyway.

“Fall,” Romin said, like he was surprised that I was standing still.

I was surprised, too. I should have died of a heart attack the moment Syra laid eyes on Grey and called himHansil.The moment when I knew that all had already gone to shit.

But I didn’t. I was still here, and so I made myself walk into the office, eyes on Valentine.

I couldn’t stop myself. I didn’t want to. God, I hated him so much I didn’t want to ever stop, so I slapped the hell out of him, and his head flew to the side.

He didn’t stop me, either, so I slapped him again, and the tears spilled—fuck it,I thought. Who even cared if they saw?

I slapped him a third time, but he didn’t fucking react at all. Valentine didn’t push me away and I wished he would. I wished he made it hurt really, really badly so that I could feel something else besides this all-consuming desperation that was crawling under my skin.

Then I grabbed him by his shirt and shook him as much as I could.

“You fucking bastard! How could you?!”

He let me scream at his face a few more times, and he never once tried to stop me. He never once opened his mouth or said something, didn’t even try to deny it. He only looked at me as I cried and shook him and asked him how he could doom me like that over and over again.

The others didn’t interrupt. They just stepped back and kept their heads down, and nobody was smiling or laughing. Nobody was entertained—because they all knew the truth by now. They all knew what he had done.

My God, what the hell was I doing, wasting time with Valentine?! I should be out there going to Grey. I should be in the ocean right now, swimming my way to the Eighth Isle to find him.

“Fall, calm down,” Romin finally said, but I barely heard him.

I let go of Valentine and stepped back, shaking still, unable to speak until I had my emotions under control.

This was a waste of time. Lashing out at Valentine wasn’t going to change what he’d already done. So, I turned to Romin, ignoring Emil and Tristian, who didn’t have a comment for me or my nightgown for fucking once—and thank God they didn’t. All this magic burning inside me was desperate for release, and they were both at the top of my hate-list together with their little brother.

“How long have I been out?” I asked Romin, who looked so pale now that I was focusing on his face.

His hair was all over the place, his black shirt wrinkled, and his eyes were bloodshot.

He looked…afraid.

“About four hours,” he said.

“He awakened Syra,” I said, as if I had any doubts that they already knew.

Romin nodded. “Yes, that is what we were talking to Valentine about.”

“Why are youtalkingto Valentine about it?” I said. “Grey is still there, still on the Eighth Isle with her. We need to be on our way there right now.”

A voice in my head, a little whisper kept insisting that I was wasting time talking to Romin, too. That it was silly of me to even assume that he’d want to go after Grey whenhewas the one to banish him unfairly in the first place. He’d been afraid of Grey and couldn’t wait to get rid of him—and I was expecting helpfrom him?

“That’s impossible,” Romin said. “We can’t even get close to the Eighth Isle.”

I shook my head. “How do you know? Have you been there yourself?”

Romin sighed, closing his eyes, as Valentine slowly raised his hand and rubbed his cheeks. I’d slapped him harder than I’d intended, but I had absolutely no regrets.

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