Page 82 of Conquering the King of Storms

I knew it wasn’t my element, so I stepped in without hesitation, and Sirus and Quake did the same. Dove bit her lip, and then carefully slid her foot into the sand, just touching a little of it with the tips of her toes.

Her eyes flew open wide, and then she jumped.

The sand swallowed her before she landed, and I staggered toward Sirus. He caught me, his fingers lacing through mine and his hand lifting to rest over my pounding heart.

“She’ll be just fine, Sway,” Sirus murmured into my ear.

“Where the fuck is my mate?” Quake grumbled, already wading back through the sand, toward the place Margo was sitting.

My eyebrows shot upward, and I watched him go. He was blind, but he had never stumbled around or seemed to lose track of where he was, so I wasn’t really sure how much his blindness affected him.

Plus… wasn’t he insane a few seconds ago?

Had the sand woken him, like the water had Flood?

“The magic’s effect on all of us seems to be waning, and the purity of the power at our lands’ hearts is assisting us when itcomes to finding control,” Sirus murmured. “Likely because of our mates dragging us back to consciousness repeatedly.”

He started leading me back out of the sand, and I remarked, “You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

“Nothing about you is bad, Sway.” He pulled me close and pressed his lips to my forehead. “I was just thinking aloud.”

I nodded. “How long will Dove be gone?”

“Could be minutes, or hours. Sometimes it takes days, but not often.” He studied the sand as we reached the back of the cave, and held my hand as I sat down. We weren’t going anywhere until Dove was back out of the sand, and holding our hands again.

“Well, that’s stressful,” I said with a sigh.

He chuckled. “The earth has claimed her, and now it’ll protect her. Don’t worry about her.”

Margo’s voice raised in volume, and I looked over at her. She seemed to be arguing with Quake…

Should I get involved?

His hands spread out at his sides. “I have no control over the magic, Velvet. None of this has been my choice.”

“None of it has beenyourchoice? I woke up in a fucking magical world with a gigantic douchebag king claiming I was his fucking wife, and petting my body like I was his fucking cat,” Margo snarled. “You wanted a mate; that’s insanely obvious. I never wanted any of this.”

“Should I leave them be?” I whispered to Sirus. “I don’t think he knows about her past?”

“What about her past?” He frowned at me, eyeing the couple.

I remembered Sirus’s reaction to the fact that Steven had cheated.

Their world was more sophisticated than ours in many ways, but more basic in many too. If the kings were correct, they didn’t have cheating or abuse between partners.

Which was obviously a good thing, but a difficult thing when it came to explaining our pasts or helping them see from our point of view.

“Can you not move past what you once wanted and embrace what we have now?” Quake’s voice was nearly as frustrated as Margo’s. “We are mates; there’s no way around that. No way to change it. No way out, either. So why not make the best of it? Why not enjoy each other’s bodies, and—”

Okay, I was intervening.

“Don’t freak out,” I whispered to Storm, squeezing his hand before I crossed the cave quickly. My hand landed on Quake’s arm, and I held him in place. “Margo, can I have a minute with your mate?”

“You can haveeveryfucking minute with my mate.” She was on her feet, stalking out of the cave, in a heartbeat.

“I know you’re going to pretend I don’t exist to avoid a fight, so just listen to me for a minute,” I said quietly to Quake, still holding his arm firmly so he couldn’t go after Margo. “On Earth, there’s something called sexual assault. It’s when someone tries to force someone else to have sex with them. Margo has said multiple times, to you and the rest of us, that she was assaulted. I know that doesn’t exist here, so you probably had no idea whatit means, but now you do. Margo was hurt by someone, and he was put in our world’s version of jail, but she was still hurt.”

Quake’s body went rigid as I spoke. I could practically feel the fury building up within him, not that he showed me any of it.

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