creepily watch her or some shit…I’d never done that, so I wouldn’t know. Okay, so we were total creeps. But it’s Ophelia! She was literally a constant in my head. A song I could never forget. You couldn’t blame me completely. At least that is what I told myself.
Now that I had decided to tell her, I pushed myself up the stairs far fucking faster than ever before. My magic was wrapped tightly around me but more than that, I wasn’t very worried about Denise sensing it. The woman was a lot of awful fucking things, but powerful when it came to magic was not one of them. It was our saving grace. Mind you that didn’t stop her from being a crazy bitch but it helped in protecting our girl.
Ophelia.
It had been hard seeing her so down today and like the weight of everything was hanging on her. I missed seeing her smile. I missed laughing with her. I wanted that back.
Every year that passed, the loneliness in her eyes grew and I hated that we had helped put it there. I could see it in the way she watched us. It was like we were breaking her heart every day. Making her feel less and less loved. I hated it, I was starting to hate myself over it. People were afraid though, not only because interacting with her could move things into motion, but because they didn’t want Denise to seek them out.
The woman killed anyone who became a threat to Ophelia finding out the truth.
When I reached her bedroom door, I paused and pressed my ear to the surface. It was silent. I opened the door, having to use my magic because someone had locked it from the inside, and slipped in using my agility.
What I found in her room made me so smug that it would probably last for the rest of my life. Ophelia was curled up on her bed sleeping lightly, her lean frame and head of dark hair creating a small mass of beauty in silk sheets. Oliver sat next to her, his eyes flashing up to meet mine and then Bard’s surprised gaze.
Guess I wasn’t the only one breaking the rules. When the fuck had he gotten back in town?
I let my magic relax from where I’d had it wrapped around me without a word, and the faint fresh air scent broke like a pop in the air. I instantly felt the tension relax from me as my shoulders rolled back and my wings extended out. They moved like a second set of arms if that made any sense, they were a reflexive muscle though. The blue and black pattern in my peripheral fluttered as I let my magic seep out and surround Ophelia.
Instantly, I let out a loud exhalation and pushed a hand through my hair, I felt Bard release his purple and black wings as he paced the room. My eyes were on Oliver though as I broke the tension with a chuckle.
“Oliver,” I shook my head grinning, “And here, I thought we were bad for breaking the rules.”
And they were easy to break. Do you have any idea how difficult it was to keep away from your mate? It was unusual for fae, normally finding their mates between sixteen and eighteen, but lucky us, we’d known essentially since we were born. It was why the three of us had been chosen for the position that we were in. So ignoring her? I felt like I was going crazy half of the time.
Unfortunately, even if she knew about our culture and her place in it, human culture didn’t deem this as a good age to get married. Ha! As if I could even think about that when suggesting being friends right now would result in getting punched in the fucking face. Or worse…she would give me that look. The look that had the power to break my heart.
My shoulders relaxed and I sighed, loving that my wings were out. Fae’s wings came out around their mate when they were attracting them, or trying to, and when defending them. I’ve had to spend my entire life, every time I ran into her, stuffing that urge down. No longer.
Our fearless leader, who I had issues finding intimidating since he was like a brother to me, pinned me with a frustrated expression before looking down at Ophelia. At twenty-one, he’d been traveling and we kept in constant contact with him, wondering when he