The Rise of Fortune and Fury (Chronicles of the Stone Veil #5) - Sawyer Bennett Page 0,63

and I’d struggle to get away because touch was so off-putting to me by that time. Amell eventually started talking to me, correcting my speech if it was bad. He’d ask me questions about my life with them, and I told him the truth. It was at that point when things changed for the better. I didn’t have a pallet on the floor anymore, but rather an actual bed, and I sat at the table for meals. I assume Amell threatened them, but that was about as good as it got. I was a lowly human to them, and, as I told you before, that’s all they ever called me until Amell gave me a name. It was the first time I had some identity.”

It’s no wonder she’s so averse to affection and why the concept of love is confusing. Her formative years had been totally fucked up.

“As I got older, Amell came more often. He’d bring me books, teach me languages, math, and history. He brought me around Otaxis so the other Dark Fae would get used to having a human in their midst, and he put the word out that I was never to be harmed. He gave me small jobs to complete and paid me tokens so I could buy things just for myself, because the couple I lived with gave me nothing but the clothes on my back. Amell eventually took me flying, and it was the first time in my life I had ever laughed. I remember how odd the sound was, but it felt good to me.”

Tears spring to my eyes, but I blink them back, forcing a steady voice. “You were lucky to have him.”

“Was I?” she asks, but I don’t dare roll my head to see her. I’m afraid she might clam up. “Amell is the one who put me in the care of those awful fae, knowing I was mistreated. Amell took me once a month to the palace where they’d perform the ceremony to pump magic into me. He shackled me behind Kymaris’ static body and stared at me with a locked jaw while Pyke pressed a staff to my spine and forced fae magic into me without my consent. Amell stood by and watched as I cried from the pain of it, and then when the dark priests came in to take the magic I’d just received and turn it dark, he stood by while I screamed in agony because that hurt far worse.”

“Fucking hell,” I growl, not able to hold it in as I sit up once again and toss my legs over the edge. “I’m going to fucking kill him, Zora. I swear it.”

Zora merely turns her head my way, staring at me through sun-dappled eyes. “Amell’s also the one who took away my pain as soon as the ceremony was over. He taught me and moved me into my own place. He also gave me protection so I could walk the streets of Otaxis with immunity.”

None of that lessens my anger.

“Amell is the one who took me flying,” Zora says softly, and there’s no mistaking the fondness there. “The joy he gave me made up for a lot of the bad.”

“I’m still going to kill him,” I vow, but I know I can’t. That would sadden Zora despite the horrible things he’d done.

“It’s complicated,” Zora replies sadly. “You had asked me once what I feel for Amell, and there are a million different memories of him that provoke contradictory feelings. If I ever tried to really boil it down, I’d probably make myself crazy.”

I try to see it from Amell’s point of view. He was carrying out his queen’s orders. He never expected to start caring for the human. He had to have been greatly conflicted.

I ponder that for a moment.

Nope. Doesn’t change how I feel. I hate the Dark Fae for causing her pain and agony, no matter if he healed her from it.

“He told me I was an orphan,” Zora says, and that jolts me right out of the plans I had started to formulate on how I might cause his demise.

“What?” I whisper.

“I told Carrick when we danced at the wedding,” Zora says quietly. “It’s funny… because I’ve forgiven Amell for so many things that were done to me in the Underworld, but that’s the one lie that I don’t think I can. Up until you contacted me and told me you were my sister, I believed I was plucked off the streets