seen me, but the scarier part was that I had no control of my body apparently. Was I sleepwalking? A side effect from the shock of dying?
Curling in on myself, I decided that I had to speak to someone about this soon, because it was clear this wasn’t a one-off incident. Something was very broken inside me.
That morning, I made the decision to pay the three men who had turned my life upside down a visit. A secret, spying kind of visit to get to know them better, when they would show me the side of them I wanted to see. The time I spent with Alaric had given me a lot to think about during my delivery shift. He had revealed a softer side of himself, but I kept wondering if that was him pitying me or if he was genuine.
I hated not knowing the truth, so I was prepared to play the sleuth. I had seen a part of Alaric that surprised me. Though, he still kept secrets, and I wasn’t finished diving into what he hid. The same applied to Keon. From what I’d learned, he was a ticking time bomb, but there was more to him I wanted to learn.
After storing the cart away in the kitchen and cleaning up, I headed out into the empty mess hall. Quick steps carried me deeper into the penitentiary. I scaled the steps up to the next floor and kept my head low. I learned that making eye contact was an invitation for war. Plus, I’d also done well so far to avoid the two witches, though I had no doubt they would be blaming me for the feathery mess in their cell.
A shiver gripped me when I remembered what I’d done, but I shoved those thoughts aside. I couldn’t think about it without giving myself a panic attack. I’d seek help soon, but right now, I wanted to focus on the task at hand and not freak myself out that I was losing control.
Seth’s door came into view up ahead, and my stomach tightened. I was still unable to get the image out of my mind of him kissing the gorgeous fae. The muscles in my shoulders twitched at how perfect she had been. Perfect white hair. Perfect lips. Perfect body. I hated her, and I didn’t even know her.
A guard marched toward me, and I bristled as his eyes traced the length of my body. He passed without a word. A few steps later, I glanced behind me to make sure he was gone. Then I raced up to Seth’s barred door. I pressed myself flat against the wall near the entrance, taking a deep breath, then stuck my head out to look inside. A dim light filled the space, and near the bed, Seth crouched on the floor, facing away from me. By the movement of his arm, I could only imagine he was drawing.
There was something painful about watching such a powerful fae stuck in a room and drawing on the floor to stop from going insane. I remembered the last image of his I found of me. The delicate lines, the beauty with which he’d captured me. Why would he have done that, with no intention of me finding the illustration, if he had a fiancée the whole time?
I furrowed my brow and drew away, unsure how to solve the mystery that was Seth. The only real answer lay in asking him directly. As cowardly as it sounded, I didn’t have it in me to confront him about it or hear him admit he was committed to someone else.
I wanted to imagine it was me he painted on the floor, but for all I knew, it was the ethereal woman he’d held in his arms last.
An ache rose through me, bringing with it the painful memories I wasn’t ready to face. Not yet, so I quietly left him behind and made my way to the farther corridors where many of the packs resided. On my travels with Trevor to deliver meals, he’d revealed passages less traveled that would take me there. If the penitentiary behaved and didn’t change hallways, I might be able to avoid the majority of the inmates and come out not far from Alaric’s prison cell.
Turning left and right, I moved swiftly in dimly lit stone hallways with no one else around. An eeriness climbed up the back of my legs, which had me speeding. When I emerged from a narrow