Page 64 of A Fate of Blood and Magic (Fated #2)

Chapter

Twenty-Eight

TEDDY

The heart should only be allowed to break once. After that, it should be absolved of ever feeling again.

Yesterday, Donnie, Ryenne, and I said our final goodbye to Grandma Richter.

The girls were also there, each of them mourning in their own way.

While Elias had wanted to attend, he’d refrained so that his presence wouldn’t upset Donnie.

Together, my closest friends and I had lit a candle and buried her near my cottage.

We shared stories. We laughed, and we cried at her burial site until Donnie could no longer hold himself upright.

I hated that we’d lost someone who had held us together.

Later in the night, when Niev came together again to send off their lost family and friends, Alastor had told me Javier was going by the cottage to pay his respects to Grandma Richter.

The fae’s grief and anger had been suffocating, but it seemed that most didn’t have the energy to be angry with Elias. Yet he’d held their anger close to his chest, even more determined to find who had betrayed them all .

We were out of tears. Yet we weren’t.

Javier left several days ago. Although Alastor assured me he was okay, I hated that he’d left. More, I hated that he had every right to leave. Hell, he had every right to hate us.

He’d come by once to see the girls with Kieren, Aidas, and Delaney with him. The kids were friendly, with Kieren still calling me Mama Teddy , but it was clear I’d broken their trust as well.

While every part of me wanted to mend what I’d broken, I knew the first step had to come from Javier. I couldn’t force anything more on him.

Elias kept himself busy, working alongside George to find the traitor while also helping to rebuild our kingdom.

He worked just as hard as every other fae in cleaning up the destruction and rebuilding the countless homes and businesses that had been destroyed.

He worked at finding homes throughout the other cities for displaced families to live in temporarily.

All the while helping any human who needed assistance, even without truly trusting them not to act out against us again.

And he did it all without magic.

Until we came to a decision about what to do with those who’d attacked our kingdom, we held them captives with guards always stationed at the prison.

Along with whatever magic bound to them to prevent them from speaking the truth, Finley had uncovered a secret sort of magic inside them that left them confused and at times incoherent.

It left whoever was behind this clear from any persecution while tension grew throughout the kingdom.

It didn’t help that despite George’s best efforts, we still didn’t know anything about the magical fire.

The prisoners’ presence unnerved everyone in Niev, with their magic becoming more erratic every day, escalating those emotions.

But Elias wouldn’t come to a decision regarding the prisoners’ fate until Donnie was well enough to voice his opinion.

It wasn’t simply that Elias wanted his input but that he wanted Donnie and Alastor to be our top advisers.

Should they agree, they would choose who they wanted on the council, and it would be the council who would decide the prisoners’ fate.

Thankfully, Donnie was improving every day, and getting around became easier for him. Now, all we needed was for Elias or Donnie to take that first step toward the serious conversation that awaited them.

Since the attack, Nalari had stayed in our yard rather than her cave.

It was good to see her there, and just as I’d done in Colina, I took her a piece of raw meat from whatever meal I’d prepared every night.

I knew it would do nothing to satisfy her if she was hungry, but she always took it without hesitation.

I scanned my living room, momentarily smiling at the googly-eyed rocks that I’d placed on shelves beside the fireplace.

So much had changed since the moment I received them.

In some sense, they represented the before.

Before the bombings. Before we lost Grandma Richter and Elias’s mom.

Before the fight between Elias and George.

Before we lost Javier. Before two little girls lost their big brother and the living room seemed so.

. .quiet. Absent of joy and laughter. Before.

The front door swung open when Brenton rushed in. His steps were frantic, eyes dark with his brows drawn together.

“What’s wrong?” I edged my feet off Elias’s lap and stood from the couch, putting the book I’d tried to read down while Elias stood with me .

“Where’s Leah?” Brenton asked, a little breathless.

“With Etienne,” Elias answered, voice laced with worry. “What happened?”

He grabbed a book from the inner pocket of his magic and pushed it against Elias’s chest. “Give this to her. The shifter, Cierra, said it would help Etienne.”

“Why would Cierra give you a book to help Etienne?” Finley asked, taking tentative steps from our hallway to where we stood in front of the door. “Have you been with her? Is that where you’ve been?”

Brenton huffed, diverting his attention to our hardwood floor.

“Brent,” Finley said, her tone cautious with a hint of jealousy.

Brenton dragged his hand across his face before he moved so he was inches away from Finley when he let out a dry laugh.

“I’ve spent the past week asking every healer from Somnio to Elumnar if they had even the merest hint on how to heal Etienne.

I went to the library when your old healer suggested I look through Reignom’s archives.

Somehow, the shifters heard of my questioning, and Cierra found me to give me that book.

” Brenton took the book back from Elias, and after quickly thumbing through it, he handed the open book to Finley.

“Here.” He tapped on a page. “If she reads from here to the next six pages, she’ll find how to treat him. ”

“Oh.” It came out as a whispered breath. Relief crossed Finley’s features as she pressed the open book to her chest, and her eyes filled with tears, somehow making her silver eyes look clearer. “Why?”

Brenton roughed a hand through his messy hair. “Why what?”

“Why are you helping him?”

I tugged on Elias’s hand to give them privacy, but before we could make a discreet escape, Brenton said, “Because you love him.”

She stood there with her mouth open and a tear falling down her cheek when Brenton nodded at her and turned to step through our door again. I followed him down the front porch steps, and when he didn’t stop, I grabbed his wrist. He spun around, his eyes dark and wild.

Elias tried to step between us, but I went around him to grab Brenton’s hand again. Brenton stared at me, his eyes going from black to a dull hazel.

“Why don’t we go for a walk?” I asked him.

He gave me a jerky nod, and with Elias staying back, we went to the hiking trail that bordered our yard.

While snow still covered the ground, it wasn’t thick, which made walking easy.

I reached for an icicle that hung from a low branch as I waited to see if Brenton wanted to talk.

With a quick nudge to my shoulder, he called his smoke magic forward and used it to melt the icicle.

When I gave him a fake glare, he shrugged and sent me a smile that quickly disappeared.

“I asked Cierra if she wanted to meet me at the tavern tonight,” he said, breaking the silence.

Surprised, I turned to him. “Oh?”

He roughed a hand through his hair and barked out a dry laugh. “Wouldn’t you know it, she turned me down. Turns out, Donnie’s her soul-bound mate.”

Wait, what? Donnie and Cierra? It was so obvious that I couldn’t believe I’d missed it. I bit the inside of my cheek to keep from smiling, but I knew he’d been flirting with her, and she went to visit him at Bon’s every day. I just thought they were attracted to each other. I hadn’t expected this.

Brenton shrugged again, this time drawing his arms around his chest. “She somehow also knew Finley’s my mate.” He huffed. “Does everyone know how pathetic I am?”

I tucked my hand through his arm. “First of all, don’t ever call my brother pathetic.”

He scoffed. “What else do you call a male who spends seven days begging anyone who can bend space to take him from city to city, all in the hopes of finding a cure for the male his mate loves?”

“I’m proud to call him my brother, who also happens to be a good and kind male,” I answered. “He’s the kind of male any woman or female would claw her way through hell itself to be with.”

When his eyes met mine, the speckles outlining the hazel dulled in color. “The female fate promised to me doesn’t want me, Teddy.”

“She loves you, though,” I said softly, knowing it was the wrong thing to say even before I uttered it.

He flinched at my words. “Don’t say that.”

It was true, though. I’d seen the way she watched him, the way her emotions warred across her face because of him. She loved him. The problem was, she also loved Etienne.

“She doesn’t love me.” He stopped walking to stare up at the sky, letting the sun bathe his face as he gazed through the few tree limbs that hung above us and took a deep breath.

“She doesn’t choose me.” His words came out small and defeated.

“Cierra has a shifter friend she wants to introduce me to. Her mate passed on a few years ago, but she thinks we might get along. I’m supposed to meet Cierra and her at the tavern tonight. Will you and Elias go with me? ”

My hold on his arm tightened, but then he wrapped his arms around me to bring me in for a hug, where he rested his chin on my head.

My heart kicked up in speed at the thought of going to the tavern, of being surrounded by so many people.

“The tavern?” I asked, noting the hint of fear that laced those two words.

But the tavern was a large establishment that could house hundreds of people. People I didn’t know who could want to harm us. Who could harm us.