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“And who might you be?” I ask, with an air of disinterest as I inspect my nails.
“Felix,” he says.
For a second, it’s impossible to hide my surprise.
Her unskilled lover, she revealed while high on moonberries.
The bushes rustle a short distance to my side, and I know it’s Kenisius in his bear form, likely finding humor in this exchange.
A dark smile crosses my face as I take Felix in. He has a pretty face, nice shape to his muscles, and despite his initial fear when he arrived, he still crossed into Avylon—alone.
All to request Alessia’s body?
“She crossed many weeks ago,” I say in a lethal tone. My eyes narrow, and I feel them flickering—darkening into their cobalt warning.
“So you saw her?” he asks, perking up. “Is she—?”
It takes me a second to speak, I’m so stunned at his audacity.
“You spent weeks…waiting around…for me to return her dead body to you?”
He chews his bottom lip. “I was hoping she would return.”
“And when she didn’t? You never thought to—well, I don’t know, find her?”
Glancing past me, he eyes the forest nervously. “I value my life.”
No matter how brave he is to appear before me today, this boy is as spineless as they come.
“You value your life.” A sarcastic laugh escapes me. “Of course you do.”
Images of Alessia on her first day here flit through my mind: tangled in the vines deep in the woods; the slices criss-crossing her feet from her barefoot run; wincing when she woke from her slumber, backside aching with unseen wounds; flinching away from me and Kenisius the first few days; wrapping her arms around herself, trying to make herself smaller.
I don’t know exactly what treacherous things she ran from, but I am willing to bet this coward played a hand in it—intentionally or not.
He expected her to die. The thought is enough to send fire through my veins.
It was such a given to him, that he hadn’t even bothered searching for her or asking after her sooner.
But she survived.
And beyond that, she is thriving.
All plants have a chance to grow when provided a proper environment. And whether she realizes it or not, Alessia’s environment is here.
In Umbra Court.
With me.
Human or not.
New images replace the painful ones: Alessia angrily challenging me; throwing creams and oils out the window at me—knocking me in the head; making Das Celyn laugh; sticking up for Fern; training with Viveka and Kenisius; trying a doughnut for the first time; listening to me talk about my mother.
Something inside of me erupts, and I stalk toward Felix.
I’m before him in the blink of an eye. He doesn’t have a chance to respond as I grip him by the neck, cutting off his oxygen.
“How dare you assume Alessia is so weak that you’d given up entirely on the prospect of her survival,” I spit.
