Page 11 of Faerie Fate (Fae Academy for Halflings #7)
I knew how it felt, every time this happened, knew the next steps weren’t going to be easy because I’d crave the closeness again. But things had changed. How could they not? How could Mike not be absolutely sickened by me now?
A different set of iron chains slowly clanked down to the pit that opened up inside of me. I locked my knees together to keep standing when Mike casually brushed me to the side. My spine flattened against the stone wall as he took out the key from around his neck.
“Come on,” he said, pointedly not looking at me. “Let’s go back to Faerie.”
He thrust the key into the open air opposite us, the hallways now blissfully empty.
One last bell rang in the distance to signify the start of the next class and Mike twisted the key. The glowing gold outline of the door shone, mingling with the specks of dust in the sunlight. The other side of the door showed the basement of the elite academy.
He held the portal open for me and I stepped through first, my insides turning to lead.
He closed the door behind us. “It’s still two weeks in the past. I brought us to the basement of the Elite Academy.”
It was empty outside of the dust and stacks of crates of supplies. The magic of this world filtered over me and the exhaustion, the dizziness, abated bit by bit. Not all the way, of course. I’d never be normal again until the blood disease from the zombie bite was healed by a witch.
And Barbara was dead, even two weeks in the past. I didn’t know any other witches.
Mike pulled his key free and tucked the chain underneath his cloak. He held out a hand for me to take, still staring in the opposite direction. “I’ll take us forward from here,” he directed.
His features twisted in another flash of disgust, probably at the thought of me having to touch him again. I hiccupped but refused to say a word.
How did I even begin to defend myself against a mate bond I hadn’t wanted? One I’d tried to reject?
Frustration had me slapping my palm into Mike’s extra hard. He gripped me with equal tightness and closed his eyes.
Here, his magic was a softer wave but equally intense. It came naturally and crashed over us, the same familiar feeling of rootedness churning my stomach.
Mike brought us forward to our time. The basement changed, the world speeding around us, and suddenly Melia stood a few paces in front of me. Her golden eyes widened in surprise, her lips an unnaturally thin line striking across her dark features.
“Oh my god! There you are.” She rushed for me and pulled up short, her fingers falling in the open air. “Hey?—”
Bronwen strode forward, Coral at her side, my cousin paler than I ever remembered seeing her before. And the basement…the basement was full.
My breath caught in my lungs at the sight of so many teachers and students from the mortal world.
Mike shifted his arm around me, underneath my opposite arm to support me before I fell. “Easy. She’s been through a lot.”
He sounded sick. Didn’t he? Sick to his stomach at having to help support me.
Melia leaped forward to take my other side. “What did you do?” she threw out.
Mike scoffed. “Seriously, Mel?”
“Force of habit. Sorry, Your Highness. Girl, you look awful. Why are you covered in blood?”
The second Melia made contact, the tears sprang free again.
And fuck them because now was not the time for me to lose it.
Not with all those people watching. But speeding forward in time only increased the pressure in my head from the mate bond.
A world might separate me and Kendrick but he was awake and he was furious.
I lost the plot entirely when Noren cut through the crowd of students with a whine.
The direwolf’s fur lifted on the back of his neck, his ears pricking high before they flattened on his skull.
He pressed closer and sniffed at the scar on my neck, licking the edges and clearing off some of the blood.
“I know you’re worried, buddy, I know.” I pulled away from Mike and Melia to hug Noren. “I’m sorry to scare you.”
He was beside himself, barking and whining and acting more like a nervous dog with separation anxiety than a big bad Unseelie direwolf.
I couldn’t blame him, though, and I couldn’t tell him things would be okay.
It was just another one of those empty promises I had no way of making sure would come true.
“It’s good you’re back,” Melia said. Steel infused her tone. “Something has closed the barrier between the fae realm and the human realm. We got everyone back to the academy but we can’t open any more doors. Our keys don’t work.”
Mike pulled up sharply. “What do you mean?”
“She means that nobody else has come through,” Coral clarified. Somehow she managed to sound pissed off and put out at the same time. She glanced over her shoulder at the sobbing from the rescued students like they were to blame. “Every time Melia attempts to use her key, nothing,” she finished.
Bronwen gnawed her lower lip and said, “We thought for sure you guys were stuck over there.”
Mike and I shared a look. “We didn’t exactly come from now ,” I explained. “Mike?”
Rather than answer, he took his key back out and thrust it into the open air across from our rescue victims. Nothing happened. There was no hazy golden portal outline. Nothing except a blond guy waving a key around.
“The same thing happened to me,” Melia added, her hands on her hips. “We’ve been cut off.”
“No one else is going in or out,” Coral said unnecessarily.
We’d been cut off from the human realm. How? Why?
“Who has the power to do something like that?” Bronwen slid her hands into her pockets and nudged closer to one of the crying first-years I’d found upstairs. Not touching but definitely adding her strength. “Could it be Dorian Jade?”
“Kendrick and Dorian are working together,” I replied. “I saw it.”
It was easier to talk to Melia than to Mike. His presence beside me felt the same but things had altered.
Mike shook his head and glared at his key as though it had betrayed him. “The spells for transport between realms have always been governed by the king and the Elder Council. Dorian Jade would have no control over them.”
Shock fused my spine. Kendrick definitely had a mole on the inside, then. Someone with the power to accomplish something absolutely monumental.
As if in confirmation, a flicker of triumph filtered down the mate bond to me.