Page 22 of Fake Fae-Ancée

"Excellent question." Gabriel clamped the cigarette between his teeth. "You should give the answer to Kai."

My jaw tightened. Gabe had the annoying habit of knowing far too much while holding his deck of cards close to his chest. His tendency to meddle had once saved my skin, and my family — and I owed him too many favors as it was. But being on the receiving end of his plotting was more than just annoying.

"Nox is still out there?"

"Correct," I gritted, scanning the sky once more.

"Why didn’t you tell her?" Gabe narrowed his eyes.

I bit down a growl. There was no proper response. When I had wanted to tell her, the usual happened, the same as every time Kai and I tried to have a proper conversation. She got angry and seconds later we were yelling at each other.

And the kiss hadn't helped with staying focused, either.

Gabriel took a drag on his cigarette.

"If anything happens to her, I'll hold you personally responsible."

I ignored his icy stare, scanning the sky again. "Nothing will happen to her as long as she stays in this building."

Gabriel’s mouth pulled into a thin line. "Fix this. Tell her what's going on. And I don't just mean what happened last night. I mean everything else, too."

He gave me a curt nod, stubbed out his cigarette in one of the golden ashtrays, and disappeared back inside.

I watched him go, clenching my jaw. I knew exactly what I was doing. And Kai knew everything she needed to know. I only had to make sure that she survived this day in one piece, and then we could go on from there…

After another long, searching look up into the clouds that balled over the estate like dark fists I also reentered the hall. Kai wasn’t anywhere to be seen. This was proving to be more difficult than I had thought.

Rolling my eyes, I set about to do what Baba had told me to do: recapture my damn wife.

Kai

I hidunder the next best table.

I had ran out of ideas to avoid Kalinin. No matter in which corner I hid or behind which broad-shouldered EDF uniform I was ducking, he was hovering in the background like an annoying ghost from relationships past.

Through the mesh of the white linen tablecloth, I watched him scanning the room, looking increasingly clueless, then frowning, and then wandering off.

I let out the breath I had been holding and rested my chin on my knees. Here I was finally alone, curled into a ball, just me and the bottle of champagne I had snatched from the buffet. Which was heavy, by the way. Without my Anima working properly, I’d had to really strain myself to lift the thing out of the cooler instead of casually plucking it in passing, like I had done on any other normal day in my life. How could people live like this? Were random things always this fucking heavy?

I took a long sip, holding the bottle with both hands, trying to down the dread in another swirl of sweet alcohol.

"Did someone lose their powers, last night?"

Another cold stab of panic pinched through the alcoholic haze.

How did this happen? What was I supposed to do? My strength was the only thing that was good about me. My only asset. The only way for me to be useful.

Worse enough that my friends didn't need me anymore. I could only imagine the shitstorm waiting for me once the chief found out I couldn't even hold my own sword anymore.

I took another swig from the bottle and choked as sour bubbles fizzled up my nose. Coughing, I cursed the ring on my finger and Kalinin who was of course responsible for whatever mess I was apparently in.

And how could we still be married?

I set the bottle on the floor and peered through the tablecloth into the banquet hall. Kalinin had reappeared, still looking for me, his massive figure towering over even most of the blue uniforms crowding the hall.

How? I gritted my teeth. Was he messing with me? Had he really not signed those papers? Damn, I should have never trusted that weasel of a lawyer with this!

A little further away, Gabriel and Charly were happily holding hands and pining for each other. The bride and groom, however, had disappeared somewhere, probably to have their pictures taken. Precious memories that went into a photo album...

---