Page 205 of Claimed By Fangs and Darkness

“I’m so sorry, Evie.”

When I reached for her again, she flinched a second time. I pulled her close anyway, and she finally relaxed.

“What do you need to feel safe today?”

She didn’t answer. The lump in my throat grew.

“I know you want to be with me, but if you remain here, you can read in your garden or sleep or do whatever you need to do to heal. I’ll send an emotional healer. I’ll have someone cook for you. I wish I could stay, but I have to get back.”

Evie wasn’t acting like herself. I had no idea what had truly happened to her. And I couldn’t be here for her properly because we were at war.

All I knew was that Aster and Conrad were going to suffer brutally for what they’d done.

Evie still didn’t speak.

“I could call for Idris as well,” I said.

“I can stay and read in the garden,” she finally said. “I don’t want to see Idris yet.” Previous emotion drained from her voice.

When I studied her again, there was no dissociation in her eyes nor fear. Her features held an eerie pleasantness that was so opposite of the reaction I expected from her.

The color drained from my face. She wasnotokay.

And neither was I.

But that didn’t change the fact that I had to go, and she was better off here than on the front lines. We would have to make do without her until her power returned.

I leaned in and kissed her forehead. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

Visions of what Aster might’ve done played out with every step I took away from her.

Evie would never be the same again, and she was right to ask me how I’d ever let that happen.

It wasanother gruesome day in Etherdale. And yet, I witnessed just as many acts of love as I did violence. Students offered us blood and dispersed food and water among the witches and shifters. Professors stepped in with their own expertise. Administrators donated magickal supplies. I watched humans drop witch-made explosives and poisons on the born from windows on battle-torn streets. I saw strangers save strangers, opening their homes and hearts.

These were the things that fueled my shattered soul, that kept me going as I led my friends into another bloody battle.

For Etherdale, forher, I forced myself to compartmentalize—to think only of the tasks at hand and to find catharsis in the breaking of bones and the piles of born corpses.

We took another mortal neighborhood today. It helped that it was an overwhelmingly pro-revolution area. Bit by bit, we were showing the born how vastly they’d underestimated us.

And gods above these fuckers were so satisfyingly confused.

I slowly made my way back to the heart of turned territory after I ensured stability. Witches were hard at work setting traps, erecting wards and safety measures for their beloved neighborhood. The fighting had simmered in this area, the born far more concerned about our presence on the other side of town—the stretch of busy streets that separated us from Nighswander Estate.

“Kylo,” Blade huffed, wiping blood and sweat from his hairline as he closed the distance between us. “It’s happening. Born forces from over the mountains are heading for us. Our allies are rising from the underground to slow their movement. Earle finally realizes the truth of who he’s up against.”

I halted. Despite it being expected and inevitable, the words still triggered a heady concoction of sensations in my body and brain.

Evie might call it the hum of fate.

“And so it begins,” I said.

The hum carried us through until late evening.

My inner circle had just met with mortal representatives, and tensions had never been higher. Most agreed with our courses of action, but some were deluded about the scope of our power, and I feared nothing we did would ever beenoughfor mortals of their temperament.

I found a small break in the action and returned home to find Evie asleep, sprawled out in our bed and barely moving. She needed the rest. Her forehead was hot when I brushed my hand over it.