Page 14 of How to Keep a Fae

Now, I imagine him doing it withher.

Fuck, how that burns… and arouses me. It’s very fucking confusing.

I also have to be honest and admit I can understand why he hid what was happening from me when I was spouting my mouth off about her hair and smiling like a love-struck sap. I might have handled it better if he’d just shrugged and said she was ordinary to him. But no. He had to twist the fucking knife in the wound. Tell me he’s obsessed. That he would kill me. He’s become like a brother to me, and he just casually stands there at the table in the warrior hall and throws down a challenge like that. Telling me that he’d endmeforher.

I swallow down the bitter taste.

“We’ll stop here for the night,” the patrol leader says. The forest is dark and fucking freezing, but we make the best of it as we set up the camp and light a small fire. It’s been a dull patrol.Sometimes boring is good. Nobody got killed. And there’s been no signs of orcs.

Right now, I’d welcome a skirmish. Some pain. A reason to go back to her. But maybe it won’t be her. Maybe next time we go into the undercroft, I’ll be given to someone else, and August will get his turn.

He fucking wants her. He wants her as his mate.

I do, too. My head’s a fucking mess.

I go through the motions of taking the saddle off the horse and brushing down my gelding’s coat. Somebody puts food on. A couple of men take up the first watch.

I’m a simple man.Uncomplicated. I like fucking, and I like fighting. I like the companionship of other soldiers. I like that there are moments of respite, a chance to drink a beer.

I’d probably be dead by now if I’d stayed in Bleakness. A little street rat stealing scraps and copping a beating more often than not. The pain that I feel right now is worse than any hole in my belly because I didn’t find anything to eat.

My life felt as uncomplicated as I am until I met Adaline.

I swipe my hand down my face. Someone passes me a bowl of mash, and I take it with thanks. I eat. We’ve formed a bit of a circle. When August finishes with his horse and approaches the fire, looking for somewhere to bed down, there’s only one gap, and it’s next to me.

He grunts and tosses his bedroll down beside me. Someone passes him a bowl of food, and he tucks in.

I miss him. I miss talking to him. I don’t like this tension between us, yet I don’t know how to move past it. I don’t know what I fucking want.

For him to tell me he had no interest in her. For him to tell me she was just ordinary to him, that the woman who has come into my world like a tornado and rearranged it around her is nothing in his eyes.

I don’t like that scenario either. For some reason, that feels like pain of a different kind. We’ve come to know each other over the time we’ve patrolled together. Many months have passed. The seasons have changed. It seems obvious now that if I’m obsessed with her, he would be too.

Two men begin a lively discussion. A rumor about a soldier who has taken himself a mate.

Unsanctioned.

He’d got a whipping for it, but no one took his mate away.

I’d call that a win.

The rumor has been circulating for a while, but there is always some new theory, add-on, or fresh word from someone who knows someone who used to patrol with the alpha involved.

I listen.

I’m confident the bastard who used to be my friend is listening, too.

What if he tries? What if he wants her enough to take the risks?

Worse, what if she wants him to?

Chapter Seven

Adaline

No patrols are due today. We spend the morning deep cleaning our nests, swapping out bedding and cushions from our personal stores with the soiled ones going down to the laundry. I have to be careful to hide my spicy romance book… and the undershirts I stole from Jayga and August while this is done.

I cherish their stolen clothing almost as much as I cherish their names, for both are forbidden. Their names were whispered during the heat of passion when I begged them to share that tiny yet significant piece of themselves.

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