Page 87 of A Promise of Peridot
My mother definitely would have encouraged me to lay off Citrine’s prince. Truth was, Fedrik was kind of a decent kid. He had tried to give his life for Griffin in Reaper’s Cavern. So what if he was a bonehead, completely unaware of how quickly a Fae like Griffin would have healed from his same wound? He was adecentbonehead.
He had pleaded with me to let Arwen rest after her ordeal, despite his shattered leg. Had been fairly tough through one of the more grisly injuries I’d seen.
By the time I found myself back at camp, the storm hadthoroughly ousted our campfire and faint light only emanated from two of the three tents. Mari and Arwen were probably sleeping by now, Griffin likely sharpening his blades.
Time to be less of an asshole.
“Fed,” I said, ambling toward his tent, “I’ve got this bourbon—it might help with the pain, and I’m actually trying to cut back—”
Under the lifted flap of the tent’s entrance was Arwen, laced in the arms of the prince, lips glued to his.
I nearly retched all the liquor in my stomach onto their crackling hearth.
Arwen pulled away from Fedrik faster than he could realize what was happening, and his dopey, lust-addled gaze took a minute to meet mine.
He had kissed her.
He had beenkissingher—
I was going to skewer his innards and feed them to him—
“Kane,” Arwen shouted after me, but I was already stalking from the tent.
It wasn’t even that he had kissed her.
Shehad kissedhim.
I wouldn’t listen to her fuck him in the tent beside me. That would—I would... There would be nothing left of me then.
Don’t be a possessive, territorial brute. She isn’t yours.
And hadn’t I known this was coming? Plagued myself with the possibility of it like a self-inflicted wound? And my conclusion was always the same: She deserved some joy. Some pleasure.
My legs carried me deeper into the jungle, past Mari’s chalk boundary, past limp leaves that slumped into my path, past drooping moths soaked in rain, fluttering out of the way with a swat of myoutstretched hand. I took another swig until the liquor burned my throat and stomach. Then another.
I whirled at the sound of soft footsteps behind me.
Arwen was misted in rain that forced her blouse to cling to her body. “I’m sorry that you—” She swallowed hard against the storm. “That you saw that. But I didn’t expect him to— I don’t even like—”
“It’s fine,” I said softly, the words blades across my tongue. I turned from her and kept walking, scarcely able to suck in enough muggy air to slow my breathing.
“Really?” she called after me, her feet trampling through wet leaves and mud.
Couldn’t she leave me alone?
I spun to find her olive eyes bright and wide, like the stars the jungle hid from us.
“Yes,really. Cocky might be the only thing that doesn’t look good on you, bird.”
Her face hardened and her nose pinched, making my heart twist in my chest.
I loved that look. I loved that nose.
“I just thought that you—that we—”
“I don’t care what you do, Arwen, as long as it makes you happy.”
She shifted, her flimsy shoes squelching in the mud beneath her feet. She really needed some new boots. “So you’re... fine?”
