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“Lena.” Her name raked out of him. A plea and an apology.
In the deluge of moonlight, her face twisted in fear and confusion.
“Need you to come down.” Trevan could barely get the words to come out.
She frantically shook her head. “I can’t. I’m scared.”
He gulped, and he glanced around. It wasn’t a hard choice to climb.
Using the first branch for footing and hoisting himself up.
The tree wasn’t giant, too flimsy for climbing, especially with his size.
But he could feel her terror and there was no way he wasn’t getting to her.
So, he eased upward, hand outstretched, promised, “I’m right here. I won’t let anything happen to you.”
He might have broken his oath to Silas, but this was one that he would keep.
Because he felt it bind through him like steel.
“I need you to trust me.”
Wariness blundered through her, but Elena moved, clutching tight to a branch beside her as she let herself slip down to him. He looped his free arm around her, muttered, “Hold on tight to my neck. Way you used to do when I gave you piggyback rides.”
She nodded in understanding, and he carefully wound them back down, one hand holding onto the branches and his feet finding purchase below.
He tightened his hold when he jumped off the last branch and onto the ground.
He shifted her around, an arm under her knees and an arm around her back.
A gush of frigid wind blew through.
A storm coming.
A freezing of hearts and minds.
Elena shivered, and she whimpered, “They said she’s dead. I heard them.”
A glob of grief closed off his throat. “I’m sorry, Elena. I’m so sorry.”
“Is Silas gonna die, too?”
Trevan wanted to swear to her that it wasn’t possible, but instead he mumbled, “I don’t know, Little Apple. I don’t know.”
Shadows crawled over her face as she peered up at him, a carving of wounds that no person should ever have to experience, especially someone who was only nine fucking years old.
“But I’ll always be here,” he promised.
Understanding wound between them, and he silently swore that he’d always look after her as if she were his own sister.
And he’d sacrifice anything to make sure of it.
THIRTY-ONE
ELENA
My eyes fluttered open to the filtered sunlight that made its way through the thin drapes of my room.
