a little as I worked out the bigger knots, but she never pulled away or asked me to stop. Doing this soothed the deep ache in my chest over seeing her this way. But it wasn’t enough. I had to do more. Everything I possibly could to make sure she was okay.
When she finished her first chocolate bar, I pointed to the pile again. “Eat,” I growled and she seemed happy to obey, grabbing up a Fairy Milk bar this time and tucking into it.
“Don’t you want some?” she asked.
“No. It’s all yours. All of it. And I’ll get more the next time I see Leon.”
“He gets this stuff into the prison?” she asked in surprise. “How?”
“In the pockets of the guards,” I lowered my tone just in case anyone was listening beyond the sheet. “Then I steal it back off of them once he gives me my mark. I can’t get anything magical in unfortunately or it’d set off the sensors. But I can always get candy and hair products.” I smirked.
“Trust the best thieves in Solaria to come up with that,” she said with pride in her tone, but those words only cut into my chest.
“I’m not one of them anymore,” I murmured.
“Roary…”
“I don’t want to talk about me,” I said firmly, drawing another section of hair back over her shoulder and starting to work on that. “I want to talk about you. Are you okay? Did they punish you? Keep food from you?” I croaked, running my finger down her spine through her jumpsuit.
“No. But we only got two small meals a day and I worked out a lot as there wasn’t much else to do.” She unbuttoned the top half of her jumpsuit and suddenly shrugged out of it so her white tank was revealed. “Touch me,” she asked and it hurt me. Wolves needed contact with other Fae, it was fundamental. And she’d been deprived of it so long I could only guess at the pain she was in over it, even after running with her pack up in the yard.
I took an elastic from my wrist and gently tied her hair up on her head. My breath caught as I spotted the mate mark behind her ear, the silver crescent moon lightly glistening against her skin. I trailed my finger over it and she stiffened.
“Oh shit-” she started, but I cut over her.
“Ethan told me,” I gritted out, my chest tight. “I guess I didn’t want to believe it until I saw the mark on you too…”
She glanced over her shoulder at me and I took in a welt on her lip which looked like she’d bitten into it a hundred times. I grazed my thumb over it and she didn’t even wince at the contact. My heart was thumping uncontrollably as I drowned in her chestnut eyes. Her strength defied every force on earth, but I still wanted to protect her like she was nothing more than the little pup I’d known ten years ago. Even then she’d had more fire in her soul than nearly every Fae I knew. I dropped my hand from her mouth and my fingertips tingled from the contact with those full lips.
“When did he tell you?” she asked, her voice a husky purr that set my blood alight.
“He found me after the Belorian attacked me,” I said and her eyes widened.
“What?” she gasped and I explained how one of its spines had poisoned me and if it hadn’t been for Cain finding us, I would have been fucked. “Ethan was going to go after you, and when I said I didn’t trust him, he showed me his mate mark.”
She swallowed, her throat bobbing as she gazed at me unblinkingly while jealousy clawed at my insides.
“So you two are…” I didn’t want to complete that sentence, but I knew I needed to hear it from her lips. That she and Ethan, a fucking Lunar no less, were moon mated.
“Mated, but not together,” she said firmly. “I don’t know how to explain it better than that.”
“So you don’t want him?” I growled. “Or he doesn’t want you?” Depending on her answer I either wanted to kiss her or tear Shadowbrook’s head off for daring to refuse this girl who was moonlight itself. Think clearly, asshole. I have no right to do either.
“It’s complicated,” she sighed, turning away and envy clawed its way up my flesh and screamed bloody murder in my ear.