Page 81 of Laid Bare

How didI get it so wrong?

The kiss with Bailey was everything I’d imagined it would be. Everything and more. Her lips were soft and supple, and she tasted exactly how she smelled.

Like the finest raspberry fae wine.

My favorite.

It’s something I’ve learned to ignore the past few months since she joined Stonewell. But ever since I sent that bitch, Veronica, packing back to Faerie, it’s gotten harder to keep the feelings I’ve buried to stay just that.

Buried.

But every time Bailey smiles, it’s like a shot of pure liquid sunshine straight to my icy heart.

No matter if I’m having a bad day or not, Bailey always seems to know how to make it better. Icicles, she doesn’t even have to do anything. Just shoot me a look, and boom. Everything is right in the world once more.

Somehow, though, I’ve completely misjudged things between us.

It was like the demons’ hell hounds were on heels; she couldn’t get away fast enough.

“Fuck!” I scream, releasing my ice magic in a torrent of frozen fury.

Icicle projectiles shoot from my very pores, slamming into the walls of the containment room with a deafening crash. But it doesn’t stop there. From beneath my feet, ice spreads across the floor, slowly climbing up the walls and onto the ceiling, leaving me standing in the middle of my own icy prison.

When the last icicle escapes, I collapse back onto the floor, breathing heavily.

“Not cool, Fae.” I jolt at the incubus’ voice, not realizing he was still here. I could have sworn he left with Bailey.

Picking up my head, I see him brush the remnants of my ice shards off his shoulders with his tail while fixing me with a glare.

“You know damn well what people are saying about her. Because of you. So keep your shit in check. If we were in your regular classroom, someone could have walked in, and it would have blown the fuck up in her face.”

He leaves without waiting for me to reply, each step he makes melting the ice beneath his feet.

Fae-dammit, I hate to agree with the demon, but he’s right. It doesn’t change how I feel, though. Nothing can. Not unless she rejects me.

But isn’t that what she just did?

Not that she would let me explain, tell her how I feel. That I’ve been feeling like this for a while, even when Veronica was still around. And to most, that would make me a horrible Fae, but Ronnie and I’s relationship has been rocky from the start.

I tried. Faerie, I really did try to make it work for my mother’s sake. But her and I were never compatible. I even tried ending our relationship when I took my job here, but her title as the girlfriend of a winter fae prince was too important for her to give up, so she followed, fighting me all the way.

It was always how much she hated it here. How no one knew who she was. She detested everything I tried to do with her, bitching and complaining that it wasn’t up to Fae standards.

And don’t get me started on the fit she threw when she took an open teaching job and I wouldn’t open my apartment to her. To her, we were dating, and we should be living together. But that went against my own beliefs. It was a constant revolving door of women for my brothers, moving in and out of the palace, and I vowed that would never be me. I wouldn’t live with someone unless they were my mate.

That may make me old fashioned, but I don’t give a fae fuck.

But it was the bullshit with Bailey that really solidified how wrong she was for me. Mother’s sake be damned. Even if it wasn’t Bailey, but another student and she did that? I would have sent her back to Faerie then too.

I’m not a violent Fae by nature, never have been. But watching Veronica join in on the lynch mob truly showed me just what kind of person she’s always been and I’ve always overlooked it.

But sitting here and dwelling on all of this isn’t going to get me any closer to an answer of what I should do now.

The vampire she’s mated to and I have never been close, not like him and the demi-god, but I would think he’s classified as a friend. Yeah, he’s more than likely to punch me in the face when I tell him I kissed his mate, but he knows her the best, and that’s what I need.

My phone is in my hand the next moment, the line ringing in my ear.

“Axel Pennington.”

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