Page 4 of A Fate of Ice and Lies (Fated #1)

In the back of my mind, I felt the human female as if she were shifting impossibly closer to me. I caught a glimpse of her. Not quite in focus, I concentrated harder, and she squinted back. Her beauty stuck in my throat, but when her eyes widened in what seemed like fear, I jolted.

Had she seen me? It wasn’t possible, but what if. . .

Her expression turned curious with a slight tilt of her head.

I took her in, memorizing the angles of her face as she seemed to study mine.

She lifted her hand toward me. Or maybe it was toward someone else in her actual realm, and I was disillusioning myself into believing our soul mate bond could cross through realms. Before I could find out, I regretfully slammed our connection closed.

“Yeah, spill,” Brenton sang, his hands twined together at the back of his head.

He leaned back on the stool, lifting the two front legs off the ground so that he almost toppled backward. When he regained his balance, he laughed lightly while Everly rolled her eyes at him, but I caught the way her lips twitched as she suppressed her own smile.

I ran my finger over the pointy tip of my left ear, letting my fingers trail over the tendrils of my long hair as I quietly mulled over what’d happened. What shouldn’t have happened, probably hadn’t happened, but felt like maybe it had.

She’d seen me. My mystery girl saw me. She’d reached for me.

Although I stayed seated in place, I wanted to dash out of the tavern to my uncle’s cottage, which sat beyond the kingdom where our Guardians had situated him and some of our warriors to patrol for threats from outside the kingdom’s borders.

Uncle Hudson was the only fae I knew with any knowledge of humans and their realm.

As much as he hated speaking about my female and wished for me to forget her, he was the only hope I had of getting any answers.

And I needed answers to this. Although I was grateful for these small flashes of the female, if it caused her the same yearning or loneliness it gave me, I wanted to shield her from it.

Everly shook her head in annoyance and drew her attention back to me. I raised a single brow at her, prompting her to speak even though my own attention was scattered.

“I heard the tavern where your uncle lives has workers that serve those who go there,” she said. “The workers do everything so the patrons don’t have to help with cooking, cleaning, or getting their own food or drink. Like we do here.”

George wrinkled his crooked nose, broken countless times when one of our training sessions had gotten too heated.

Although his magic had healing properties and he’d been able to heal the breaks himself, he hadn’t done as good of a job as a proper healer would have “Why would they need to be served when we can just get what we want?”

With a shake of my head, I chuckled. As if my uncle needed a reason to find ways to be pampered.

I’m sure he was once the perfect son of the late king, who waited in his room for servants to bring him whatever he desired.

As my father’s most trusted commander, he may have patrolled and hunted for the darker creatures in our realm, but he had more luxuries in his large cottage than we did in our castle.

She shrugged her strong shoulders. “They say the patrons can just order what they want and relax while they wait for a worker to bring it to them.”

“I prefer getting my own food and drink,” Brenton grumbled. “Or when George goes to the kitchen and cooks one of his fine meals.”

George rolled his eyes, but Brenton was right.

George was an incredible chef and brought in more customers than any other fae, which was probably why the tavern’s new owner scheduled him in the kitchen more often than any other.

And my lack of kitchen skills was what kept me out of it.

When I first started coming to the tavern after coming of age eight years ago, the patrons had been kind.

Some were even fearful of me. They’d eaten whatever I’d managed to put together without complaint, but after causing some serious bowel issues one evening, Timothee had agreed to let me pay for everyone’s meals a few times a week while I steered clear of the kitchen.

I nodded my agreement as I took in the fae among me.

While I saw them as my people and my responsibility, I doubted they saw me as their future ruler.

I was just another patron of the tavern who they not only saw regularly but also took meals from and debated with from time to time.

I was the fae who shared jokes and bread with them.

While I’d never be a commoner, I was nothing or no one special, and I preferred it that way.

Still, for some time now, I’d felt as if my life was shrinking. Like the carefully crafted walls my parents had erected around me were moving toward me, boxing me in so I couldn’t escape.

It wasn’t just my daily routine. Sure, the meetings with the king and his advisers were tedious, the battle training mundane, and the public appearances with my parents were. . . dull. It was the life chosen for my family by the Guardians themselves. It was an honor and privilege.

I’d always taken my tasks seriously. I respected what the Guardians wanted from me and went beyond what was asked to make them proud. I never gave them a reason to question their loyalty to my family.

That was until I heard her. The female from the human realm whose voice had started off as a whisper.

With each passing day that I tried to ignore her, her siren call grew stronger and more pronounced until ignoring her was no longer an option.

I couldn’t go to her; I knew that. The fate of her realm depended on me remaining where I belonged.

Nonetheless, the temptation to go to her thrummed through my veins like a poison I couldn’t rid myself of.

Of course, I’d be soul bound to a human.

Even now, as the local bard played his ukulele and his daughters danced and stomped barefoot around him, I heard her. I could almost feel the warmth that radiated from her body and taste the tender spot just below her earlobe.

Just as I closed my eyes to take her in, her sudden pain and fear ricocheted in my head. I rose quickly, toppling my stool to the side as I scanned my surroundings, where I still stood at the back of the tavern.

Everly came beside me and placed a hand on my rigid shoulder. “What is it?” she whispered, her own attention sweeping the tavern in search of whatever threat had alarmed me.

The female in my head shuddered as a small gasp asking for help crashed into me. Her wary gaze seemed to slam against mine, pleading with me.

I held a hand to my stomach while George tried to ease me back to the stool. Only then did I hear the sudden stillness of the tavern where talk and music had ceased.

I lifted my hand and forced out a chuckle. “Indigestion,” I said, laughing.

If anyone laughed with me, I didn’t notice.

Sweat collected in my palms as I staggered out with my friends close behind me. Once outside, I sucked in a cold breath and held it in my lungs until it burned.

“What’s going on?” Brenton asked.

I pressed my fingers to my temple, where it began to throb. “The female,” I hissed out.

“The human female?” George lifted a brow in question.

I shook the sudden fog that filled my head and blinked, trying to refocus as my soul mate’s fear wrapped around me like a vise.

“She’s in danger,” I gritted out.

She needed me. Me, not my primal instincts that wanted to take over.

“Elias,” Nalari warned.

While her cave was far, it wouldn’t take her long to get here. If I wanted to get to the female, I couldn’t hesitate. Not like I’d done earlier.

“You can’t.” Her growled warning reverberated in my ears.

“Then we must go to her.” George clapped my back, smartly keeping some distance between us.

My friends, the fae I’d been counting on since youth, nodded. They were with me, and foolishly, I thought it was enough. That the warnings that had been drilled into my mind were nothing more than a tale.

And if they weren’t?

In the kingdom my ancestors and our Guardians built, the best of us, the most noble of fae, carried the weight of the realms on their shoulders.

It was the only way to maintain peace among all the realms. And they were the ones who were crushed first as the weight of all the worlds caved in on them.

I wasn’t that selfless.

And what now seemed inevitable despite the terrifying repercussions was this. I’d damn the whole human race to save the girl.