Page 31 of Foretold

He holds out his hand, waves of darkness floating from hisfingers.

“What?” I ask, my brow furrowing.

“Take it off. Now,” he demands.

Bane’s jacket. Damn, I forgot about it.

I remove the jacket and hand it to him. He throws the jacket at Bane, who catches it and slides a sleeve over his arm.

The anger-infused air is thick and suffocating, and if I don’t handle this right, a fight will break out between them.

Through our bond I feel how hurt Rave is at seeing me with Bane, especially when I haven’t fully forgiven him yet. I hate that I made him feel this way.

“We were attacked. I was stabbed, and she healed me,” Bane summarizes, pushing off the wall and standing next to me, but not too close because he’s clearly an intelligent incubus.

Rave’s bottomless-pit eyes give me another once-over, concern flashing in them. “Are you okay?”

I nod. “There were six of them. They heard about me being a succubus and thought I would be worth something if they took me.”

He turns to Bane, gritting his teeth. “If you cannot take care of her in your kingdom, she won’t be returning here.”

“She’s standing here, unharmed,” Bane points out, crossing his arms over his chest. “I protected her with my life as I will continue to do.”

“Yes, and why is that, Bane? Shouldn’t her brothers be with her or her friend?” he asks, staring Bane down with a look that would make a lesser man wither. “Why are you so interested inmyprincess?”

Oh, fuck.

“Rave—”

“She’s alsoour princess,” he reminds Rave, scowling. “And she is family now. I protect her just as her brothers or father would.”

“As long as you remember, she is very much taken,” Rave replies quietly, gently taking my wrist and rubbing his thumb over the mating band like a brand. He lowers his tone to a deathly quiet threat. “And I will burn down all eight kingdoms before I let anyone take her from me.”

Bane’s hands clench to fists, his eyes flicking amber, but Rave zips me back home before he says anything.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Astrid

Instead of taking us to his room, as I thought, we land on the border of our kingdom, right where we once fought vampires together.

“Why are we here?” I ask, looking out over the terrain. We’re on a hill overlooking the vampire territory filled with thick, lush trees shaded in moonlight. It’s not safe to be here, yet I feel nothing but safe with the male standing next to me. Even if he has hurt me and broken our trust, I still know he would do anything to protect me.

“You know I’ve never claimed to be a good male. I’ve done some terrible things, some I’m not proud of. I know you heard things about me, which is why you didn’t want me in the first place. And I know I lied to you. I was so fucking scared anything else you found out would push you further away, and I didn’t know you well enough to risk Vale,” he says, tilting my face up to look into my eyes.

“But ever since I met you, I’ve been trying to be better. To be worthy of you. I don’t care if I’m the villain in everyone’s story as long as I’m everything in yours. I don’t care how long it takes, Iwillregain your trust. I love you, Astrid. I used to think of having a mate as a way to become more powerful, but that changed the second I met you. Now, I want you. Fuck the magic. Fuck my title. I just wantyou.”

His vulnerability takes me by surprise and lowers my guard a little. “I trusted you, Rave, even though I knew I shouldn’t. I still did, and you made me regret it.”

“I know,” he whispers, running his thumb along my jawline.

“I want the truth, the whole ugly truth, not just you telling mewhat I want to hear,” I demand, resting my hand on his forearm.

“What do you want to know?” he asks, and I realize I’m asking him to be honest when I haven’t told him everything. But his comment about only wanting a mate for the power made me think about my first vision of him and how he’d somehow taken my magic from me. Was that what he had originally intended?

Raking my teeth over my bottom lip, I ask something I’ve wanted to know for a long time now. “Before I came along, were you in a relationship with Vera? Did you dump her because of me, or were the two of you already done?”

When he drops his hand from my face and runs it through his dark hair, I know I’m not going to like this answer. “Vera and I were on and off again for a long time. We had ended things for good when she told me she was pregnant with Vale, and then we tried to make it work for him. I didn’t want to have a child with someone other than my mate, and I didn’t want to be in a committed relationship either. I don’t think it’s fair on anyone, knowing we could meet our fated mates at any time.”

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