Page 55 of Cursed Shadows 3

And I do the work.

I manoeuvre us, push and kick us around the ice. All Aleana has to do is hold onto me. She only has to float.

Eamon and Ridge fast grow bored of our pace.

In just some minutes, they start to circle us, drifting further and further away, until we’re outright abandoned and they take off to the reaches of the ice-floor.

Dare and Daxeel watch from the barrier down the way.

And for a long while, Aleana and I drift around in silence.

My voice is soft as I ask, “Is there anything else you want to do at least once?”

A whisper of shame, the same that floods her face pink, “Yes.”

I pause as we glide past a human couple.

Once we’re out of their earshot, but not spared from their curious glances, I turn back to Aleana.

“And? What is it?”

There’s no hesitation in her before she answers, “Bedding.”

My eyebrows lift. “You… You haven’t…?”

She shakes her head. “I’m surrounded.”

The pinkish hue on her cheeks turns to scarlet blotches smearing the ashen pallor of her skin.

“Between Daxeel and his friends, and mother,” she sighs the words and rolls back her eyes, “I haven’t had the opportunity to be alone… with a male.”

Before I can answer, Eamon and Ridge spear by us.

Aleana’s hair lifts in the breeze they hit us with.

I fight the urge to throw a scowl after them, since they skate much too fast. Too fast for Aleana, who rattles with a fright; too fast for the stray humans who watch them with a hint of wonder in their frowns and narrowed gazes.

I shake my head in muted annoyance, then turn back to Aleana. Her hair settles back into place along her shoulders; neatly cropped.

“If you could be alone,” I start, careful, since the last time I asked after her desires, we had a slight spat, “who would you be alone with?”

She glowers at a nearby human adolescent who slips against the barrier. “Rune.”

My brow hikes.

It’s no surprise that she would choose Rune. The surprise is in the truth of it, that she tells me this with little more than a red face, but no hesitation.

I wonder if it’s that we’re closer now than we were back at the Gloaming—or that she’s nearing her end, so has no patience for secrets anymore.

“But,” she enunciates, and her grin is more of a bared-teeth look, “Daxeel would never allow me to be second to a dead evate—and neither would Rune. I think that’s all the more reason forit to be him. He puts me above his own desires, he wants to protect my heart more than he wants to take from me.”

Maybe I should be more grateful for this moment with her, that she shares these secrets with me now.

I’m not.

Last time I entered the topic of Rune with her, it didn’t end so well for me. And our reconciliation didn’t come with false apologies or embraces of shame. We just went on as though it never happened.

So I’m not overly enthused about her confiding in me now. I walk dangerous lines with Daxeel. Aleana snapping at me, annoyed with me, could damage my progress.

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