Page 116 of Enchanted Heir
Krew would have killed Easton in a heartbeat for me. This darkness gnawing at me would only be worse once Krew was gone. And as much as my heart hurt today, finally knowing the truth surrounding my father’s death, the day Krew left me was going to be a far worse one.
“Okay then.” Owen took the journal I was looking at but not reading right out of my hands and placed it gently on the footrest. “I know you don’t want to go anywhere. I know you are struggling. I get it. But there is a wolf out there that needs you.”
“So you do it,” I snapped. “You can’t do it for me foroneday, Owen?”
Owen shook his head. “No.”
“I can’t have just one day to myself?” I rolled my eyes and reached for the journal, but he blocked my arm.
“No. Either you are going to the forest with me willingly, or I am carrying your ass, but we are going.”
I was so not in the mood for him today. Didn’t he see the pain that I was in? That I didn’t even know how to breathe or move or sleep. I didn’t know how to exist. And maybe eventually I’d be able to sleep and would feel better, but for now, I didn’t know how to do a thing.
I felt a queasiness and all the blood rush to my head as I was in the air.
“Since we have to do this the hard way, we are taking the passageway, honey. Sorry about it.”
Great.
I made him lug me down the first two flights of stairs. It made my head pound, being half upside down, but feeling anything other than the pain and fear of the last day had been welcome. Then after the next flight of stairs, I started to feel nauseous too. I wasn’t sure if it was all the bouncing upside down or the fact that I hadn’t eaten anything yet today, but I decided I didn’t want to experience trying to vomit while being held upside down.
“Put me down,” I demanded.
Owen stalled. “We are only halfway. If you try to make a run back for Krew’s room, I will catch you, and I will carry you back down here.”
“Fine.”
“Fine.”
The fact that he slowly put me back on my feet and gave me a minute to hold onto the wall while I got the blood flowing in the right direction was nicer than I deserved. I wasn’t mad at Owen. I was mad at...everything.
Once outside, I realized it was freezing out today. I was at least in a long-sleeved day dress, but I didn’t have real shoes on, only my slippers, but they were going to have to do. I also didn’t have a coat on, and neither did Owen, so this was probably going to be a quick trip. Owen held up a hand and went inside for I assumed the food, bringing back out with him a blanket for me to wrap around my shoulders.
So we walked. Neither of us saying anything. There was no fun banter today. No laughter. Just a dull gray void of neither of us knowing what to say about the previous day.
Owen led the way to the food dishes we stashed by the meadow, so I followed along as his hostage. I had no doubt he would have carried me this entire way if he had to.
Once the dishes were in view, I walked over to them, ready to get it over with and get back inside to the warmth. My foot snapped on a twig just as I peeked in the dish to find it already full.
“You already fed Rafe?” I was even more annoyed now. Why would Owen bait me with Rafe then carry me down three flights of stairs if he had already fed him anyway? I started stomping back toward the castle.
“I fed him right away this morning,” Owen admitted as he added a small amount of food to the dish and reheated it with his magic.
I spun back to glare at him. Why then, couldn’t he just leave me alone to sort out all these feelings?
Owen dropped his hand and the magic stilled. “I don’t know how to help you, Jorah. I didn’t know what you needed. Left alone. Or bothered. But I’d rather bother you, so you know I care, than not try anything at all.” He took a step toward me. “And if I know anything about you, it is that you crave being in this forest. So if nothing else, I thought if I couldn’t help you, maybe it would?”
As soon as he was done speaking, I broke. Sinking onto the cold ground, gasping and sobbing. Owen. Another man I loved, though quite differently from how I loved Krew. And he was also Enchanted. The very thing Ishouldhate because of how my father died.
Back when I had asked Owen if he and Krew had been the ones to kill my father, I had already quite ignorantly decided that whoever had killed my father had to have been one of the bad Enchanted. That surely none of the good Enchanted could have done something so horrific and cruel.
But even the good Enchanted were bad too.
Easton was supposed to be one of the good Enchanted. Supposed to be yet had killed my father in cold blood. Then again, he had gotten himself kicked off wall duty, possibly in trouble with the king, and then joined the disloyal because of what he’d been forced to do.
So was Easton even really to blame? Or was the king?
Was it good versus evil or were we all stuck somewhere in between?
