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“But you don’t hurt her.”
“Because I don’t face the same temptations with her as I do you, Alessia! You are a danger to me, and I am a danger to you.” His eyes stop shifting, and this time they stay dark and stormy as he exhales a heavy breath.
He whispers so only I can hear, “I’m sorry.” Apologies sound sweeter on a fae prince’s tongue. But they sting that much sharper. “This is not what I wanted. But we have no choice. Stop fighting me on this.”
“We always have a choice!”
After all that talk about learning to be strong, to fight, now he wants me to stop fighting?
“There is something else you should know.” Rainer wears a pained expression. Briefly, he closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. When he reopens them, his features are carefully schooled, as if he’s fighting any emotion that might appear. He gestures at Felix’s body “I am the one responsible for his missing hand.”
My eyes widen. “You’re…what?” My legs give out and a loud sob bursts from my lungs.
Rainer runs a hand through his hair, his shoulders slumping.
"Did you do this?" I ask, my voice cracking. The heaviness in my chest spreads through my body. "Was this you, Rainer?"
His face contorts with regret. "No, Alessia, I swear it." He swallows thickly and looks away. "Just the hand."
"Why?" I cry. "When?"
Before I can succumb fully to the agony, Eoin’s hands are on my shoulders.
“You’re okay,” Eoin whispers in my ear. Rainer tracks Eoin’s movement, his whole body going rigid. His jaw flexes, but he doesn’t tell Eoin to get away from me this time.
“Get off me!” I try to push Eoin away. “Don’t touch me.”
He keeps his grip on me. “Just a second, Alessia.”
“No. You bloody bastard!” I claw at Eoin, desperate to get away from him. “You are a rotten apple! Sweet on the outside, poisonous on the inside.”
“And you, my dear Alessia, are a worm wiggling your way to my core.”
A deadly growl rips from Rainer as he charges toward us.
But then a tingling—like static—spreads from Eoin’s touch over the rest of my body.
“Wait,” I mutter, holding up a hand.
Rainer stops in his tracks, glaring at Eoin. His body vibrates with anger, as if he's fighting with himself. Battling to adhere to my wishes and not come any closer.
The anger, the grief, the terror…it all melts away, leaving peace in its wake.
I stop fighting and relax into him and he wraps an arm around my shoulder. My feelings are still there somewhere, but they are deep in the background instead of a prominent feature.
“How are you doing?” Eoin asks softly.
“I’m—I’m okay, actually.” I gaze up at him. “How am I okay with this?”
He offers me a half-smile, but it looks out of place against his sad eyes. “Empath, remember?”
“I thought you were a healer.”
“Yes—but that isn’t only physical.”
Any other time, I’d be upset that he took away my feelings without my consent. But right now, I’m grateful for his touch of empathy. And I realize, if it’s anything like when he healed me before, he’s now the one burdening my heavy load. He’s the new owner of my worst emotions.
Rainer continues to look at the spot where Eoin touches me, and his entire body is so tight that I’m afraid he’ll snap. Those icy eyes conceal so much pain. They begin to flicker between azure blue and cobalt, a warning sign that he’s close to snapping.
