Page 119 of A Realm of Shattered Lies

I wonder for the first time if Evander is going to kill me.

I wonder if I’ll let him.

He looks to be contemplating it when someone steps in front of me.

“That’s enough,” says a voice I ache for like the earth thirsts for water in the middle of a drought.

Nox emerges from the shadows.

Evander looks Nox up and down, and the most beautifully cruel smile warps his usually kind face. “See how long you can keep that up, defending her, before it’s you who ends up in a ditch while she’s onto something shinier.”

Nox tenses, and for a moment, I wonder if the two most important males in my life will rip each other to shreds.

Ellie lets out a wilting cry, and the hostility melts from Evander’s face. In an instant, he’s back at her side, cradling her hand in his, pressing his forehead to hers as he whispers apologies in her ear.

I don’t mean to eavesdrop, but I hear him beg her forgiveness for not protecting her.

Marcus’s voice is steady as he addresses Nox and me. “I think it would be best if the two of you go.”

It’s only then I recognize the bloodlust in Nox’s eyes as his gaze settles on Ellie’s wound.

Nox nods and disappears into the shadows.

I take one last look at Ellie, her teeth gritted, her brow twisted in pain, and follow him into the dark.

PART IV

CURSED

CHAPTER 49

EVANDER

Our hands are clasped together, mine and Ellie’s, though I can’t tell which one of us is shaking. Probably both. Of course it’s both of us, Ellie from the pains of labor, me from the rage boiling up inside me.

The bones in my hand are slowly knitting back together from where the Other crushed it.

I hardly notice.

Panic courses through my veins, causing my whole body to tremble, my knees to shake, though they’re planted in the earth next to Ellie. Next to my wife.

She is going to die. And if not Ellie, if the Fates spare her, then our child is going to die.

I can’t see a way around that, a world in which the Fates don’t take our child from us, and neither can she.

How did I let this happen? Why did I place my family in danger, all in a fruitless quest to help a leech who’s never wanted to be helped? A girl who’s never cared about anyone other than herself?

We’re going to lose our child, and I might lose Ellie too, and I can’t even blame Blaise for it.

I can blame no one but myself.

How do you let go of someone who’s drowning? How do you live with yourself?

That was the question I asked Ellie, unsure at the time that I could live with myself if I did.

What I didn’t realize was that while I was swimming against the crashing waves, fighting with Blaise’s thrashing limbs as she grabbed onto my neck and pulled, we weren’t the only two in the water.

How do you let go of someone who’s drowning? How do you live with yourself?

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