Page 13 of Foretold

“I was going to give you some space to—”

He brings his lips to my ear. “Do I look like I want space?”

Oh.

“Bane—”

Bane and I are just friends. I’m very much taken, and even though Rave is an asshole, he’s the only one my heart and soul calls for. It seems wrong to have another male touch me, even innocently.

“Leave,” he orders the woman.

She pouts and gives me a side-eye but does as she’s told.

“Bane—”

“I’m here to make sure you’re safe,” he says, letting go of me. “And I didn’t come here to fuck anyone, so you don’t have to feel like you need to give me any…space.”

Bane is just doing his duty to keep me out of trouble since he’s the one who brought me here, and he doesn’t want Zython to kill him if something happens to his only daughter.

Safe.

He’s safe.

“Okay, I don’t want to cockblock you. It’s why I left August over there with Pandora.”

“Yet he’s still looking over here at you,” he replies, taking a big sip of his drink like he suddenly needs it. “What is it about you, Princess?”

Turning to face him, my heel almost touching his boots, I look up at him and shrug my shoulders. “I don’t know, Bane, why don’t you tell me?”

Shit.

The alcohol is making me bold.

And stupid.

And reckless.

Okay, maybe it was the vision.

Did I forgive Rave so easily for his lies without making him suffer?

Part of me doesn’t want him to suffer at all.

But the other part of me wants him to hurt as much as I do right now.

And boy, do I hurt so fucking much.

Is Rave with Vera and their son right now, playing house?

Actually, I suppose I was the one he was playing house with.

His home was and is with them.

Lifting my hand to push a strand of Bane’s hair off his cheek, he catches it and stares down at my wrist. No, at my mating band. A muscle works in his jaw before he lifts my wrist to his mouth and presses a soft kiss there. He then lets go of me, his throat working as he swallows.

And then there’s Pandora, pulling me back, away from Bane. His eyes narrow as he watches me leave, his hands clenching as if to stop himself from grabbing me.

“What the hell are you doing?” she asks, leading me outside the tavern. “He looked like he wanted to eat you whole. That’s a dangerous game you are playing, Astrid. Rave would go to war ifhe heard you were getting so close to Bane. You know he fucking hates Bane, right?”

---