I’d tried every spell I could think of, but still had no luck in finding her.
“This is stupid!” Fox yelled, clutching at his chest.
“We have no one to blame, but ourselves,” I whispered.
“She’s overreacting,” Deryn growled, his fists clenched at his sides as he paced the living room of our house.
“Is she?” I asked, looking at my three brothers. Though we had no blood relation, they were my brothers through and through.
“What?” Rhys asked, turning away from staring out the window. He’d been staring out the window most of the time, like he thought if he just stared, he would see her coming back.
“She had four bonds cut. Four. Imagine our pain four times over. Then, we bombard her with a meeting like that, to tell her we are going to risk ourselves to draw out the people who have caused her the most pain in the past two years. I think she’s reacting pretty appropriately for who she is. I’m more surprised that she didn’t destroy anything.” The amount of power she had been building, had it been released, would have had catastrophic repercussions.
“She’s made her point,” Deryn growled. “Why hasn’t she come back yet?”
“Are you still planning to use yourself as bait?” I asked Deryn, already knowing the answer. Neither he or Rhys responded. “Then, she hasn’t made her point.”
“This is—” Rhys began, but I cut him off.
“She doesn’t know how else to explain or show us the pain she endured. She is doing what she thinks is the best way to bring us to our senses. What if she volunteered to be used as bait? How would you feel?”
Rhys, Deryn, and Fox all growled.
“Exactly,” I whispered, my hand balling into a fist at the thought of her being used as bait.
“Doesn’t this mean that she’s experiencing this pain four times over as well?” Fox asked, rubbing his chest with the heel of his palm.
I nodded. It was something that worried me the most. She was likely in so much pain, that she might not be able to protect herself.
Rhys’s phone rang and he answered it with a grumble. His entire body went rigid and then he turned on the television in the room to the news station.
“Reports are flooding in of people in Rulan experiencing pain so intense, that they are curled into balls all over, clutching at their chests. Doctors have confirmed that the cause is magical, but have no idea where the source is,” the reporter said. They panned to a video showing people lying in the streets of several cities, crying and clutching their chests.
“Fuck,” Fox said, turning to me.
I nodded. “She’s there.”
“Authorities are trying to pinpoint the location of the spell’s origin, but have so far been unable to do so,” the reporter continued.
“Do you have a spell to shield us from that while we fly closer?” Rhys asked me.
“Yeah,” I said breathlessly. She had no idea she was causing others to feel her pain. She would be devastated to learn about it. We had to get to her before someone died.
We all headed to the roof, and Rhys shifted into his dragon form.
I’d wanted to give her more time, but we had to get to her and stop this. We couldn’t let people suffer just because we were being stubborn assholes.
Chapter 7
Jolie
I felt them drawing near, but didn’t stop them or try to conceal myself. I wasn’t certain how they had found me, but I wasn’t worried about that.
The pain was so intense, I couldn’t move. I had wanted to return yesterday, but hadn’t been able to do anything other than sob on the floor. No tears came anymore, my body was dehydrated and my stomach was completely empty.
Deryn tore the door off its hinges and tossed it out into the hallway. He stood there, his eyes blazing, and looked around the room until he found me. Once his eyes landed on me, the fury was gone, replaced by pain and sadness.
Nico rushed in, pushing Deryn aside and dropped to his knees beside me. “Release the bonds,” he ordered me.
I opened my mouth, but all that came out was a wail of pain.
“Dammit,” Rhys growled.
Nico grabbed me, but as soon as our bodies came into contact, the pain spread to him, and he fell to the floor beside me, his mouth open in a silent scream.
Fox, Rhys, and Deryn dropped to their knees, clutching at their chests.
Fox had tears streaming down his cheeks and he shuffled on his hands and knees closer to me. “Jolie, release the bonds. Do it. Now. You’re hurting others. You’re projecting your pain and the others in this city are hurting just like you are.”
Fuck.
I was so close to blacking out as it was. I didn’t have much time left. How had my power spread? How had others been brought into this?
I took a deep breath, and with a mighty heave, released the bonds. Their energy rushed into me and I fainted.
“Jolie,” Nico whispered, his lips pressed lightly to my ear. “Wake up. Please, love. Please wake up. I can’t lose you. I can’t lose anyone else.”
Hot drops splashed the side of my face. Nico…was crying?
My entire body hurt. Everything felt heavy and strange.
Just opening my eyelids took a huge amount of effort.
Nico’s tear-filled eyes met mine and he smiled. “Hello, beautiful.”
I’d fucked up. I was only supposed to leave them for a day, make them relive the pain that they’d felt when we had lost our bonds. Or, at least as close to that pain as I could.
“Drink this,” Fox ordered me, holding a cup of liquid up to my lips.
Nico helped me sit up, and I drank the strange green juice. It burned as it went down, but once in my stomach, I felt it healing me.
I had no strength to hold myself up, but Nico held me effortlessly.
Nico stroked my hair while Fox stroked his thumb across the hand he held.
My throat wouldn’t work yet. I closed my eyes and relaxed at their touches.
“She’s awake,” Nico said.
“Has she said anything?” Rhys asked.
He sounded like he was across the room. Was he mad at me? Was he avoiding me? I couldn’t feel them in the bond, despite it being open.
“No. She’s still healing,” Fox answered.
“We need to go,” Deryn said, his footsteps coming closer.
Nico lifted me in his arms, and I leaned my head on his chest.
“Roof?” Fox asked.
“Yes,” Deryn said.
Nico walked to the door, pausing by Deryn as he reached out.
I flinched as his hot hand touched my skin. He jerked his hand back and scowled. “She’s so cold.”
“Who’s there?” a deep voice shouted from somewhere downstairs.
“Go,” Rhys said.
All four headed up the stairs and to the roof. Rhys shifted and the three climbed on to his back. Nico set me on Rhys’s back, looping an arm around my waist and pulling me back against his chest.
The potion Fox had given me was working, but I didn’t have the strength yet to hold onto Rhys. Deryn sat in front of me and I reached up a trembling hand, brushing my fingertips on the edge of the back of his shirt, since that was all I could reach.
He turned and his brow furrowed. He scooted back, closer to me, and said something to Nico, but I couldn’t hear. It was only a moment later that my eyes rolled up into the back of my head.
I woke still in Nico’s arms. He was walking, but the only sound I heard was my blood rushing through my body.
He set me down on something soft it felt like a bed and started to move away, but I grabbed his arm, holding him as tightly as I could.
He slid down next to me, wrapping his arms around me.
Warmth from my other side began to fill me. Fox was healing me.
I opened my eyes and met his tear-filled ones.
Slowly, I opened my mouth and said, “How…”
“Shush,” Deryn ordered me. “Don’t talk yet.”
“Sorry,” I whispered, tears welling again and spilling over and down my cheeks.
Nico shushed me and kissed my forehead. “Don’t apologize,” he whispered. “We’re the ones who are sorry. We’re jerks and we are sorry.”
“I’m sorry,” Deryn whispered his lips next to my ear and his cheek against mine. “I’m sorry.”
Maybe it hadn’t been for nothing? Maybe, they understood what I’d been trying to say.
“I’m an ass and I’m so sorry. I always screw shit up with you,” Deryn whispered. “I shouldn’t have tricked you like that. I shouldn’t have agreed to that plan. I knew you wouldn’t like it, and yet I went along with it anyway. I’m not fit to be your mate.”
I grabbed his arm, squeezing as hard as I could. He rubbed his face against mine and I felt the dampness from his cheek.
“Someday, I’ll learn to actually look at things from your point of view. I’ll try to get better. I’ll try to think things through before acting. I can’t lose you. And, I know you can’t lose us either. We won’t be using ourselves as bait. Okay? We promise,” Deryn whispered, sniffling.
Nico moved away from me, his body replaced by a warmer one as Rhys lay beside me. He slid his hand along my cheek and rubbed his thumb over my cheekbone. “We’re sorry, baby. We’re so sorry.”
“I shouldn’t have run off,” I managed to say, new tears streaming down my face. “I’m sorry,” I sobbed.
When would I learn to stop acting without thinking? When would I learn to stop being so damn childish?
“Shush,” Rhys ordered me. “Just lay and heal.”
“Did you eat at all?” Deryn asked.
“No,” I whispered, sniffling. “No food or drink.”
Just pain. Lots and lots of pain.
“Drink this,” Deryn ordered me.
I opened my eyes and let Rhys sit me up before drinking from the offered cup.
This cup held a potion that helped restore magic reserves and healed the body faster than others. It also tasted like shit.
I swallowed it, and then coughed a few moments.
Rhys kissed my temple as he held me up. “I’m sorry.”
“I’m sorry,” Deryn said.
“I’m sorry, too,” Fox said.
“Me, too,” Nico said.
“We won’t use ourselves as bait,” Fox said.
“Promise?” I asked as I looked at each of them.
They all nodded.
“We promise,” they all said.
“I’m sorry,” I said and started crying again, wrapping my arms around Rhys’s neck, and then hugged Deryn. Fox leaned forward across my body to hug me and let Nico do the same.
“No more talking,” Deryn said.
Rhys lay me back down and then spooned his body around mine. “Sleep, Jolie.”
Deryn spooned his body on my other side and before I could ask where Nico and Fox were going, Nico used a spell to put me to sleep.
When I woke, I sat on the edge of the bed, staring down at my hands.
“What’s up?” Deryn asked groggily, wiping at his eyes as he sat up beside me.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered.
He pulled me onto his lap and wrapped me up in his arms. “We all get a little carried away from time to time.”
“I can’t lose you,” I whispered, tears streaming down my face.
His hold tightened, and he kissed the top of my head. “You won’t.”
Rhys sat up, his eyes still closed as he pulled me from Deryn’s lap, and into his. Deryn held one of my hands, and I took several deep breaths to relax.
“We need to find them, but there has to be another way,” I said.
“We’ll think of something,” Rhys replied in his grumbling sleepy voice, eyes still closed. He was so not a morning person.
“They’ll slip up eventually,” Deryn said. “The bad guys always do.”
“What day is it? Don’t you guys have work?” I asked, trying to look around Rhys for the clock on the bedside table.
“It’s Saturday,” Deryn answered.
“Shoot, I have to go to see the elves today,” I said, jumping from Rhys’s lap. My legs wobbled a moment, but they held me up. After a quick shower, I felt back to my old self.
Fox was the only one left in the room when I finished changing. I’d been instructed to dress fancy, so I put on a red backless dress I had recently purchased. It was a little snug in the stomach, but not uncomfortably.
“What’s up, buttercup?” I asked with a smile.
He held out his hand, a scowl on his face.
Serious Fox was never a good sign.
I went to him, set my hand in his, and let him pull me down to sit in his lap.
He nuzzled me behind my ear and whispered, “Promise me something?”
“Hm?” I asked, my pulse hammering at his deep and quiet tone.
“If you want to leave, if you want some space, at least take me with you. Let me be nearby so if something happens, I can get to you. You could have died. I don’t know what I would do if you died. Probably destroy something.”
The thought of Fox destroying something was almost funny. Yes, he was strong and powerful, but he was so often relaxed and non-aggressive, it was easy to forget.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered, nuzzling his neck and placing a gentle kiss on it.
“Don’t apologize. Just, promise me?”
“I promise,” I whispered, wrapping my arms around his neck and squeezing.
“You’re my world, Jolie. We screwed up. We did forget how painful it had been. We did forget what it was like to lose you. I don’t want to condone your tactic, but it worked. We all remembered what it was like, how awful it was. I don’t want to be separated from you again. Never again.”
Hearing him admit that what I had done had worked made the guilt lessen. Not that I liked hurting them, but I was glad that what I had done had succeeded.
“Never again,” I agreed, squeezing him.
He stood, supporting my weight with one arm beneath my butt, while I kept my arms around his neck. “Now that we got that serious business out of the way, let’s go have fun!”
“What are we doing today?” I asked.
“Elven fun!” he said.
I looked up at him, and he just smiled brightly, radiating happiness and warmth.
“Whatever you want to do,” I said, resting my head on his chest as he carried me.
“Whatever I want, huh? Well, in that case we aren’t leaving the house for a week,” he said in a rumbling whisper in my ear.
“Naughty elf,” I quipped.
He chuckled. “Dad will kill me if I don’t bring you home. Mother has been demanding to see you, too. She’s got something up her sleeve and I’m not sure what it is. It’s worrisome.”
“Your parents love me,” I reminded him. “I’m sure it is fine.”
“I think they like you better than me,” he said with a pout.
I bit the sensuous lip he had stuck out, and he growled, his hold tightening.
“Tease,” he grumbled when I released his lip.
“Not a tease a promise for later,” I replied.
“We don’t have to stay long, right? We could pop in, give greetings, then come back home, right?” he said.
“You can wait,” I said, jumping from his arms as we got to the garage.
“I can, but that doesn’t mean I want to,” he replied, unlocking his car.
I climbed in and buckled up. They’d only recently stopped using drivers for everything. Dan had argued with Deryn for hours about us needing to use a driver, but we’d won out in the end. We still used drivers for some things, but for the most part the guys drove now.
“When did you learn to teleport?” Fox asked as he started the car.
I shrugged. “A while ago.”
“And why didn’t you tell us?”
“Because I figured it might come in handy at some point,” I replied. And, I had been right.
“What else do
you know how to do?” he asked, backing out of the garage.
“Well, I did learn this new thing with my tongue, and—”
He groaned and then laughed. “You’re such a brat.”
“You love me,” I said with a wide smile.
He shifted into first and headed away from the house. “That I do, my love. That I do.”
“So, what does elven fun consist of?” I asked.
“A party,” he said.
“For?”
“Uh, for a special event,” he said, skirting around a proper answer.
“Fox,” I said in a growl.
“Dad’s birthday,” he said.
“What! I don’t have a gift for him. We have to stop somewhere first and—”
Fox shook his head, stopping me. “We have a gift. I got one that is from both of us.”
“What is it?” I asked.
“Well, I can’t tell you yet. We have to talk to my mom first,” he said, his brows furrowing and his grip tightening on the steering wheel.
Was that fear?
“What is it, Fox? Why are you scared?”
“It’s probably nothing. I’m just being paranoid,” he said.
“Fox,” I moaned and leaned against the door. “You’re doing that thing again.”
“I know!” he said and sighed. “Look, I can’t say anything until we see Mom. Okay? The others will be there, too.”
“The others?” I asked.
“You know, your other mates,” he teased. “Or am I just so handsome that you forgot about them?”
I chuckled and leaned over to kiss his cheek. “You are very handsome.”
“Deryn still has the best butt, though. That irritates me,” he grumbled.
I burst into a fit of laughter. I couldn’t help myself. I laughed so hard that I clutched at my hurting stomach.
“Laugh it up,” he grumbled.
“Kit, you have an amazing ass, too. I don’t understand these complexes you boys have. You’re all fucking gorgeous and could get any girl you wanted.”
“There’s only one girl I want,” he said. “And she keeps staring at Deryn’s ass as he walks by.”
I bit my lip to keep from laughing again. “I look at yours when you walk by, too.”
Royally Enraged: A Reverse Harem Fantasy (Her Royal Harem Book 4) Page 6
