Page 3 of Night's Fall
ButIlived with it every day.
Or more to the point, without it.
It took everythingIhad not to fall into the habitI’dacquired and lift my hand to rub my chest likeIcould soothe the beast who wasn’t there anymore.
Or she was, but she was still gone.
Annnnnnd…
Yeah.
Remembering the enormity of my loss,Ifelt likeIcouldn’t breathe.
I forced air into my lungs.
I was so busy trying to get oxygen,Ididn’t hide the factIcouldn’t, thus neither of my friends missed it.
“Well done,”Catsniped atGayle.
“You started it with this ridiculousBlackRoombusiness,”Gaylesniped back.
“Girls—”Itried to intervene.
It was always a crapshoot if my attempts at intervention would work, but this time whenIrolled the dice,Ifailed.
“Not everyone is husband hunting.Faehave mates.Sodo shifters,”Gaylepointed out. “Wedon’t have to go on the prowl.”
“Lucky you,”Catsnapped. “Asyou know, it’s not so easy for us demons.”
“Not luckyoreasy,”Gayleslapped back. “Mymate could live inLand’sEnd, andI’llnever meet him.”
This was true.
Same for shifters.
In your everyday life, if you weren’t lucky enough to run across the one who was meant for you, something that rarely happened, eventually, you had to quest.
Which meant, unlike whatGaylejust asserted, wedidhave to go on the prowl in order to meet our mate, and it was much more of a thing than whatCathad to do.
In fact, many fae and shifters took a year from work (this was, fortunately, legally mandated for employers to allow us to do), if not longer, in order to travel theFourRealmsin hopes of running across the one who was meant to be ours.
You could, of course, contract a witch to narrow down the search area for you, but witches who could successfully track mates were few and far between, and that meant they were insanely expensive.Thatsaid, witches who scammed desperate fae and shifters were a dime a dozen.
And if you didn’t find him or her, you’d just have to make do, something no one wanted, because living without your true mate was like living without a limb.Youcould do it, but it would suck.
“But you can take your time, make a holiday of it,”Catstated. “Ihavetomakea connection orDad’sgoing to?—”
Now it wasCatcutting herself off.
“Your dad’s going to what?”Iasked.
She turned her head to look out the window, the long, copper waves of her hair floating over the alabaster skin of her bare shoulder.
“Oh shit,”Gaylemumbled, watchingCatclosely.
She turned to me (by the by, the waves of her gorgeous chestnut hair also floated enchantingly overherbare shoulders).
I stretched my lips at her.Shebugged out her moss-green eyes at me.
