Aerin all but rolls her eyes at his self-sacrificing bullshit. She rips her wrist from his grasp.
“Gods Malice, please,” she sneers. “You will never convince me this is one sided. Iknowyou feel it.”
Aerin lifts her hand to her ribs, rubbing the blood-bond. Malice’s wings flare outward, his teeth clenching together.
“I canfeelthe way you feel it. I canseethe way you feel it. I feel it when you look at me. I feel it when youfuckme. You’re in love?—”
Aerin is cut off when the wall behind Malice blasts apart.
71
EMRYS
Theo paces the length of the living room. He’s been doing it incessantly since Aerin left the apartment with Malice two hours ago. It’s starting to grate on Emrys, but every time he looks at the Mer to say something, Reyna catches his eye and simply shakes her head no.
The Human is reading a text on Fae histories she snuck out of Echelon, sitting on the floor with her legs folded underneath her in her Human form. It’s rare these days, to see her slight in stature with her rounded ears and rounded cheeks. It makes her look young.
Emrys plays with the carpet under his fingers. It’s been a hard week, the tension between Malice and Aerin nearly unbearable for him. The Wellroot he’s been smoking after their gym sessions helps, but navigating his feelings for the both of them is tricky at best and tenuous at worst.
Eventually Malice will find his way, Emrys knows this. He can’t help but hope it happens sooner rather than later.
Theo walks the length of the room once more before groaning.
“This is torturous,” he complains. “Honestly, I should be at this dinner. I’m a Mer Prince for fucks sake.”
Reyna smiles softly. “Mer, being the thing that kept you here,” she snickers.
“Oh, shush, Human. You have no idea the insult it is to be consider less than Fae with the amount of magic I have,” Theo says, half teasing half serious.
“Yes, yes, the almighty Mer.” Reyna’s sarcasm is thick as she flips the page of her book.
“No need to sass me, Pip.” Theo pouts.
“I told you to stop calling me that.” Reyna’s voice fades from his hearing as something else rolls through Emrys like a surge. A block of lights being turned off. A shockwave he feels from the center of his chest outwards. He grips the carpet below him harshly.
Reyna notices the change in his demeanor immediately.
“Emrys?”
He is there but he isn’t; he feels pain, but it isn’t his. There’s a vacuum, a suction of magic out of him as it floods to other members of the pack.
Something is wrong. Something is wrong. Something is wrong.
His thoughts spin around and around until Reyna’s hand on his knee brings him back to the living room where two sets of eyes stare at him.
“Are you okay?” Reyna’s soft voice asks.
Finally, the words make it from the whirlpool in his head to his mouth.
“Something is wrong.” he stands abruptly.
Reyna reels back; Theo straightens from where he was hunched over Emrys.
“I’m sure everything is fine,” Reyna assures him.
Theo, though, with his heightened senses and anxiety at being separated from Aerin, believes him.
“What did you feel?” he asks, crossing the room. “Can you contact her? Can you speak to her?”
