“Uh…Hate to break it to you, Maeve, but you totally are.”
“Well he didn't have to say it like that! Although, since I’m being honest, he had every right to be angry with me, too.”
Delani’s eyebrow arched. “He found out about the hole in the wall?”
“Well, yes. But?—”
A gentle knock on the door interrupted me and Pia slipped into the room. “Hey, I just saw Sawyer in the hall. He filled me in.”
Delani moved over to make room.
Pia laid down between us. “How are you doing?” she asked with an arched brow.
I groaned again, rolling my eyes in the direction of her strawberry hair. “Gods, I am so sick of people asking me that. I’m fine. I’m great. Never been better. Is that what I have to say to get you all to stop asking me that?”
Normally, Pia would have fought back, but she let me have this one. “Do you want some break up sex? I said it before and I’ll say it again: I’m sure Sawyer would be more than willing?—”
I smacked her in the face with my pillow.
“I also overheard something that I found quite interesting,” she insinuated.
“And what might that be?” I replied through a strained groan.
“Something about a rather large hole, burned into the wall of the arena. Quite strange, isn’t it? I wonder what could have caused it?”
I scoffed. “Weird.”
“We were just about to discuss that, actually,” Delani said, a slight increase in the pitch of her voice.
Pia put a hand upon my shoulder. “Maeve…if you knew that you were having trouble wielding, you really should have told someone. I mean, I know this is whole new territory to you, but still.”
“I’m not having trouble wielding it. I can summon it perfectly fine. I just can’tcontrolit after,” I corrected. “And besides, I had only tried that one night, right before we left. It wasn’t worth mentioning.” I dropped my gaze to my thumbs, watching them fiddle with each other. “They all know now, anyway.”
In sync, Delani and Pia asked, “How?”
“Imayhave taken a tree down when I lost control of my power. And Sebastianmayhave found out about it. Hence why he was upset at me, hence why our argument blew up, and hence why I am now officially single. Well, all that, and I said thatIwasn’t his girl.” My eyes watered as I finally allowed the pain in that I’d been fighting off.
“It’s gonna be okay.” Pia rubbed her dainty hand from my shoulder down the entirety of my arm until it settled upon my shaking fingers.
“It just sucks because I am so unbelievably in love with him that it physically pains me to think about not being with him.” To not feel his skin against mine. His breath on my neck. His cock inside of me. His words on my lips as he kissed me like I was the air he needed to breathe. “But I can’t be with someone I don’t trust,” I sniffled, wiping my eyes. “Not to mention he was saying some pretty douchey things, but to be fair, so was I.”
Delani shot up. “You know what you need?”
“What?”
“Booze.” She grabbed my hand and pulled me to my feet. “And I just so happen to know where they keep it here.”
After an evening ofheavydrinking,I made a few rules for myself.
Rule number one: Do not use alcohol as a coping mechanism.
Rule number two: Do not arm wrestle with King Hawthorne's head soldiers. You will not win and you will end up with a broken arm.
“Venay isour only mender talented enough to correct such a break, and she is still away touring the ruins of Caelestis. You will have to wait for her to return before we can do anythingabout your arm,” Archer said the following morning after he finished setting and wrapping my forearm. “Can I ask how this happened?”
“That would be my doing.” Kohen entered the dining room, hand raised in the air. He took the seat next to me and shrugged. “In my defense, I told her it was a bad idea.”
Pia had tried to heal the break last night, but for some reason had great difficulty getting the bone to set in the correct position. She then disclosed how her first attempt at mending a broken bone resulted in it having to berebroken, so we decided not to push our luck.
