“What the fuck was that?” she asked, making sure she emphasized each word.
Raine squared his shoulder as he stared back at her. “You were crying. I could feel your pain from over there.” He gestured to another ship, where he was supposed to be standing guard tonight.
“So you make a scene?” She didn’t let him shrink back as she took another step toward him, grabbing a fistful of the white tunic that looked too damn good on him, hoping it would wrinkle and make him look less… just less of anything, especially the things that made her heart jump whenever he was around.
“You know we are here to help them,” Frelina continued, her eyes darting to Loche and Iviry, who were venturing toward the dance floor, people parting for them. “I am doing what I can, and so should you.”
“I know,” Raine snapped back. “I… I just can’t fucking stand it when you hurt.”
One of her brows flew up before she could stop it.
“Fuck,” Raine swore as he followedthe weave of unease that must have crossed her face. “I know I caused some of it, and… I am trying…”
“You’re trying… what?” She nearly tapped her foot when Raine’s mouth opened and closed like a stupid fish on land.
When Raine didn’t say anything, she scoffed, gently shifting him out of the way as she approached the dance floor.
I’ve said it before, Raine. If you want something with me, you need to use your fucking words.
She sent the thought to his mind, and before she was able to close her own, another thought left her mental boundaries—one she could feel pierced his mind like a dagger would his skin.
Because there might be a time when I’m not there to listen anymore.
Chapter 20
Raine
Because there might be a time when I’m not there to listen anymore.
Well, fuck, that hurt, and it started a damned fire under his skin. Raine stared after the angry little female as she slapped a huge smile on her face and took the hands of two other half-Fae to drag them onto the dance floor.
She wanted him to use his words? Raine ground his teeth when that bastard Frecco mouthed “Are you okay?” over the heads of the others and Frelina wrinkled her nose as she nodded.
Something he hadn’t felt in a long time vibrated across his skin, and he blinked when he realized just what the foreign emotion was.
The will to fight.
Raine blinked again as he watched Frelina lift her arms over her head, spinning around as if she didn’t have a care in the world amidst the Fae, half-Fae, and hesitanthumans surrounding her, her blue dress looking as fucking free as the smile on her face.
He’d never backed down from a fight before—at least before Solana died—and now? No, there was no fucking way he would. Not when he’d realized… he’d somehow fallen in love with Elessia’s sister, had fallen right down when she stomped on his feet, scolded him as if he were but an adolescent, and dragged him out of the dark hole he’d spent far too long in.
If she wanted him to, he’d use his fucking words.
But he needed to find the perfect ones after everything he’d put that amazing female through. He couldn’t just stroll up to her and declare that he’d realized he’d fallen in love with her.
She deserved so much more from him… and it was time he stopped fucking moping around and did something about it.
Raine could actually hear Solana cheering him on as he started walking toward the dance floor, and for the first time in a long time, he let her face remain in his mind, her smile somehow driving a warmth through his veins he’d almost forgotten the feeling of.
And despite Frelina ignoring him, pretending she didn’t know he still stared at her, a smile tugged at his features as he watched the crowd shift before him, cups being handed to those out of reach of the barrels and laughter breaking through the soft tunes from the drums and the Fae who’d stepped up to sing one of their old songs, one about witches and their love spells that hiked Raine’s lips up further.
Then something in the air shifted, and Raine stilled, his muscles locking, and every nerve inside him sparked,ready, as he scanned the crowd again, letting his eyes travel across this ship and the two beside him.
When he didn’t immediately pick up what was amiss, he dropped the barrier he usually kept up to keep people’s thoughts out, letting the happy minds and the ones touched by sorrow fade into the background as he focused on those that glowed slightly crimson, the ones that told him rage drove whatever they planned on pursuing.
A shifter’s mind was what caught his attention first, unfairness weighing heavily in the male’s thoughts as he made his way through his crowd. Around him were a few other shifters, their minds colored by the anger of the leader Raine had identified first, the almost animalistic tinge to their thoughts wrapping around him like a cool breeze.
We need to confront the regent and that fucking Fae,the male shifter thought, and Raine tried to lock onto his mind as his eyes flew across the crowd. But as always with shifters, it proved more challenging than with humans and Fae, and the claws he usually could dig in, in less than a second slipped across the volatile whirls.
