“You’re okay?” He ran a hand over my forehead, feeling my temperature.
“I don’t have a fever.” I smiled despite the fatigue rolling through me. “I’m not sick.”
He glowered. “You passed out.”
“Yes, but that was from being tired. My collar still suppresses me too much despite its loosened state.”
A frown marred his features, and his sapphire eyes swirled in a myriad of blue colors. “You commanded a semelee in the fae lands.”
“I know. I haven’t done that since—” My throat rolled in a dry swallow, and I hastily looked around for a glass of water. One sat near the bed, on a table. I pushed up more and reached for it.
Jax instantly placed it in my hand, and I greedily consumed most of it.
Once my mouth no longer felt dry, I set it down, but I refused to meet Jax’s probing gaze. A second ticked by, only the sounds of the city on the streets below filling the quiet.
He cocked his head, and his voice turned soft. “Does your hesitation right now have anything to do with what happened when you were young?”
My attention shot to him.
An understanding look spread across his face. He settled onto the bed more, his aura billowing around him. “Have you ever spoken of it?”
For a moment, I couldn’t respond. Of course, Jax knew immediately where my thoughts had turned. He always had an uncanny knack for reading me, and since we were bonded, he could probably feel my wariness too.
Squeezing my eyes shut, I tried to forget what happened all of those summers ago, but the screams had stayed with me. I could still hear them.
Finally, I shook my head. “No, I’ve never spoken of it.”
“Do you think it would help if you did?”
Tears moistened my eyes, but I blinked them away. Drawing my knees up, I wrapped my arms around my legs. “I can still hear them, Jax. Their screams when they died still haunt me.”
His throat bobbed, and a groove appeared between his brows. “You were a child, Elowen. You didn’t do anything on purpose.”
“But Ikilled them. Twenty-one fae died at my hands that day.”
“How old were you?”
“Five.”
His breath sucked in, and he inched up the bed until he sat closer, then slipped an arm around my waist so he could lean into me. “And where was your guardian when it occurred?”
My chest tightened, but I forced myself to calm and inhale deeply. “He was beside me.”
A muscle began to tick in Jax’s jaw. “And who was the one that pushed you to venture to the Veiled Between when you were only five summers old and probably had no idea what you were doing?”
I swallowed, my throat again feeling dry. “Him.”
“And when you called the semelees back to the fae lands with you, did you do it on purpose?”
“No!” The shout left my lips before I could stop it, and I drew my legs up even tighter. “I didn’t even realize I’d done so, not until I saw them swirling at my side. Truth be told, I’m not even sure how I returned them to the Veiled Between after they—” With a shaky hand, I grabbed the water again and took another hasty drink. The cup trembled in my grip.
Once finished, Jax took the glass from me and set it back down. He tucked a strand of hair behind my ear, his eyes softening. “Yet you did return them, with nobody helping you learn how to do that. At five summers old, you stopped them from killing more fae.”
I dropped my attention to my hands and began to play with my fingers. “ButI’mthe reason twenty-one fae were killed that day. I still destroyed twenty-one families.”
He cupped my jaw, forcing my chin up so I had to face him.
Hardness coated his expression, and a muscle ticked even more in his jaw. “No, Elowen, you didn’t. Your guardian is to blame for that. No adult should be demanding that a child risk her life and other lives by forcing her to learn her magic too quickly when she’s not mature enough to understand it herself. You arenotto blame for what happened that day.Heis.”
