Page 60 of What Hunts Inside the Shadows

“It was nothing,” I said, turning my flushed stare away from him. My cheeks felt overheated with something like shame consuming me. I shouldn’t be so embarrassed by the things I wanted and the desires this male created in me, not while knowing there was no reason for such shame. He was the epitome of every sin the people who had raised me to believe was wrong. He was also the reason I would never have to exist in a world where virtue was valued over kindness. I couldn’t, not ever again.

“Little liar,” he murmured, his voice soft as he stepped up behind me. I stood beside the hot spring, staring into the cloudy waters that were warmed by the heat trapped within the mountain. “I can feel your humiliation now. There’s no reason for you to be embarrassed about anything when you’re with me.”

He unclasped my cloak from around my shoulders, guiding the fabric away and tossing it to the side so that it fell in a heap on the ground. The linen he’d brought to dry us off went along with it, and I resisted the urge to turn to meet his stare. I couldn’t look him in the eye when I admitted it to him, even knowing he would probably enjoy the knowledge of my possessiveness.

“I was grateful that I will be able to face the masses tomorrow smelling like you,” I answered, for once almost resenting the fact that the hot spring would wash me clean.

“Hmm, is that because you want the women to know I’m yours in a way they never could have expected?” he asked, his voice a hum at my back. It sank into my skin, vibrating through me as I tried to decide exactly what it was that drove my irrational desire.

I was still as jealous as I’d been before, but not in the same way. I wasn’t concerned that he would have a tryst with any of them, and was confident in the knowledge that he truly was mine and would continue to be for the rest of our mortal lives. I just didn’t want other people to covet what was mine, I realized with a shock. It seemed ridiculous, to be so secure in our relationship and what it meant between us, but unable to let go of that sense ofownership.

Whatever I was becoming, I couldn’t decide if I loved it or hated it.

He stripped off my tunic, my bare skin pebbling with goosebumps. “I don’t know,” I admitted, pursing my lips as I tried to decide what it was about all of it that set me so on edge.

“Then we’ll just have to make sure you smell like me come morning,” he said. The moment his hand touched my bare skin and his lips coasted over my neck, I realized one very clear thing.

It didn’t fucking matter.

Sleep never came. In spite of the way Caldris had made love to me in the hot spring, and the way he’d done it all over again when we came back to the room, I couldn’t get my mind to quiet. My restlessness drove me off the bedroll we shared in our private little haven, wishing against all hope and possibility that we could stay in the center of the Resistance for an eternity. When I stayed here, there was none of the conflict that existed outside of these walls, as if it was its own private world, removed from the pressures we would face when we crossed the boundary.

A shelter in a world determined to start another war.

I stepped outside of our bedroom, dragging my hand over the stone as I made my way through the tunnels. None of the Wild Hunt moved to stop me, not bothering to interfere with my descent farther into the mountain itself.

I grabbed a torch off the wall when I came to the part of the tunnels that wasn’t used in the nighttime hours, using it to guide me to the library that had become my refuge. I’d resented it at first, feeling like it was a punishment designed to lock me away and put me in a place where I didn’t want to exist.

But it had become a haven, and I was thankful for the respite the books had provided. I only wished more women were taught to read, so that more of them could get lost in the stories that had saved me from real life far too often.

I stepped into the room, finding the books left precisely the way I’d left them. Not a thing had been moved, as if it had become a tomb in the absence of the only person who could read them. My heart wept as I considered leaving them and the knowledge they contained behind, knowing there wasn’t a single person who could make sense of the history trapped within these walls. Everywhere I looked, I saw Melian lurking at the edges of my vision. Knowing she was gone, knowing she was dead because of my stupidity and stubbornness, all I could think was how horrified she’d be to see these books go to waste once again.

I stepped behind my table, running my fingers over one of the pages in an open book. It seemed like it had been a lifetime since I’d last been here, reading the words on that page.

It had been a matter of weeks. That was the extent of the time that had passed.

Breath rushed out of my lungs as I was stunned silent with the realization of how much had changed in such a short time—with how muchI’dchanged. I wouldn’t have been able to fathom accepting my Fae mate only a week ago. Weeks ago, I wouldn’t have been able to comprehend the sort of betrayal that Caelum had committed.

And now I was considering accepting our bond?

He appeared as if I’d summoned him; as if he could hear his name in my thoughts. “You’re thinking of me. I suppose I’ll have to let that reassure me since you once again snuck out of our bed while I slept,” he said, leaning his shoulder against the doorway. The position was so similar to what he’d done in the past that my heart skipped in my chest. I reached up, rubbing the ache it caused.

“How do you know I’m thinking of you?” I asked, averting my gaze to the book on the table. I ran a finger over the page, enjoying the rough feel of the paper against my skin. It was comforting in a way. One thing I recognized when all else had been torn away.

“Your emotions have a very distinctive feeling when you’re thinking of me. I’ve come to recognize what it means when that travels down the bond,” he answered.

“What does it feel like?” I asked, unable to help myself. I turned the page, running my fingers over the portrait of a Fae female wrapped in shadows. She stepped forward with a single foot, disappearing into a chasm where no light existed. She emerged on the other side intact, stepping out of that darkness as if it was an easy task.

Caelum shifted, making me turn my attention back to him. It was so unusual for him to waste movement on something that served no purpose. His movement was always intentional, working toward a goal as soon as he chose it. “Bitter,” he said with a shrug, his lips twisting to the side as he crossed his arms. “Sweet, guilty, so full of love and hatred in equal measure. It feels as if you know you love me, and you fucking hate every moment of it.”

I tore my gaze away, dropping it to the side as I sighed and fought back the sting of tears. “Why couldn’t you have been human?” I asked, huffing a bitter laugh.

He pushed off the doorway, closing the distance between us and snagging my chin. Turning my gaze back on me, he smiled softly. “The irony of you wishing for me to be human, when we both know that you yourself are not.”

“We don’t know that,” I said, shaking my head even though he refused to release my chin.

“I don’t know what you are,” Caelum agreed, heaving a sigh. “But whatever it is, it is not human. Humans do not have the abilities you have shown as of late. It is time to accept that you are not who you thought you were.”

“But I had human parents. A human brother. How is that possible if I’m not human?” I asked.

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