Page 89 of Bound to the Shadow Queen
Shards damn it all.
All of this…all of it was wrong, and it was all from this. Hatred and pain and war in a cycle that never ended. But if I could make her understand…
My wings burst forth from my skin. I didn’t care that they tore through my gown and cloak. It was instinct.
“Everly.”
The rare sound of my name on Draven’s lips stopped me in my tracks. His mana wrapped around me, somehow warmer than it usually was, tinged with something curiously close to remorse.
I turned slowly to face him, but his features were carved from stone, unreadable as ever.
He was standing with the compendium in one hand, his other outstretched toward me. The moonlight caught on the silver scar across his palm. The one that matched mine.
“We should get back to the palace,” he said, his voice gentler than I had ever heard it.
I glanced back at the empty sky.
He was right. I knew that. Of course I knew that.
Zerina was gone, and there was nothing I could do to change her mind, or any of their minds. The Seelie, the Unseelie, they were all determined to hate one another.
And me.
So, I slid my hand into his, letting him whisk me back to the palace where I could go back to pretending I was half of what I knew myself to be.
Everly
We landedin Draven’s rooms, the heavy silence settling around us like frost. Zerina’s retreating back was still in my mind. It shouldn’t have mattered.
Shards, I hadn’t even liked her at first. But Alaric had been my friend, once. Had been poised to be my friend again, one of the only people willing to show kindness to a half-Seelie.
And Zerina had started to become the same.
It all hurt more than it should, but maybe that was just the oppressive knowledge that this was my life. A half-life, no matter which side I chose, always hiding or suppressing pieces of myself.
Weariness soaked into my bones.
Draven reached into his cloak, wordlessly holding out a leather-bound book.
Right. My compendium.
I took it from him, my fingers brushing against his. The moment was more charged than it had a right to be, somewhere between his mana and the endless pull of my body toward his.
The room was frigid enough that my breath ghosted out in a delicate white cloud, the stone walls leeching the meager scraps of warmth from my bones.
But Draven’s hand was warm, steady, and the only thing in this room that felt alive.
It was far too easy to imagine leaning into that heat, to let myself thaw against him. Too easy to forget why I couldn’t.
I swallowed back the temptation, turning to go before I could fall victim to my own weakness again.
“Wait.”
The word was quiet, almost uncertain.
I stilled, my pulse stuttering. I began to turn back, only to freeze when I felt it. His hand hovering over me in a question.
Over mywings. I had forgotten to put them away. I nodded wordlessly, and he gently lowered his hand.
