Page 13 of Finding Her (Lore of the Fields #1)

Head in my hands, I hunched over the mahogany desk with fingers pressed into the corners of my eyes.

You lost your temper. Again . Shame trickled down my spine and filled my gut with a twisting, poisonous drip.

I reflected on a version of myself that was calm, patient, and forgiving.

A version that was worthy of Faeryn’s affections and trust. A version that died years ago.

A male could only handle so much, and having her in the house was plucking every last high-strung nerve.

In another life— another world —I would spend every waking moment pursuing our cruelly-fated bond.

I would let it be known what she meant to me, and I would hope she took my word for it when I said we were mates.

If she had opened her eyes in my carriage and immediately felt the same intrinsic connection, maybe things would’ve been different.

But she hadn’t. It would be cruel of me to pursue a relationship with her, knowing that what she was going through was my fault.

I would be striking a match destined to burn her.

I didn’t deserve her love, and that was made further apparent as I became an increasingly controlling and temperamental prick.

My uncontrollable obsession with her every breath made me volatile.

I couldn’t think straight. Every time she looked at me with those innocent verdant eyes, my heart shattered into a million pieces and slowly rebuilt itself only to crumble again.

I needed to stay detached. Mask my pain and yearning with as much neutrality as possible.

But, there was no denying that she held my soul in her delicate hands from the moment I saw her.

I don’t want her to be afraid of me. I can’t risk her being afraid of me.

If I had even a modicum of control over myself, she’d never have seen the darkness so close to the surface.

I was petrified these lapses in composure were only a taste of what was to come if I didn’t get my shit together.

By the gods, this was going to be harder than what I’d prepared for. Not that I had done much preparing.

I was wholly responsible for Faeryn being dragged into the most popular pub in town on the busiest night of the week.

I knew Mykie was fighting her own demons, and I didn’t set clear boundaries on how to handle the situation, or at least, how to not make it worse.

“ Watch her for a bit. I’ll be back .” What was I thinking? I hadn’t been.

Same as I hadn’t been thinking when I panicked as she opened the damn front door.

For all of my flaws, I had never intended to harm her.

I would rather snap my own claws from my wrists than allow them to mar her soft flesh.

I’d only been trying to stop her, and didn’t realize how quickly my hands turned into weapons in my antagonized state.

I tried to move her gently, but that didn’t matter given the blades I was working with.

Those smears of dried blood—no matter how inconsequential—reminded me of what I was to her.

A fucking “ monster” and the reason for her predicament.

In case that disaster hadn’t been enough evidence that I was apprehensive about Faeryn venturing into town at all, last night had proven the point.

I was going to have to adopt some flexibility unless I wanted to resort to tying her up in my home, which I had considered before promptly ruling the idea out.

Holding her prisoner would almost certainly backfire, not to mention I simply didn’t have the stomach for seeing this female unhappy. I had already done enough harm.

As a compromise, I would incorporate strategy into her freedom.

Dyeing her hair was a starting point. Supervision was in order.

And I assumed not being black out drunk in public was obvious .

That said, Mykie was hardly an expert of subtlety when it came to her vices.

She was an agent of chaos, albeit a devoted one.

It was the primary reason our friendship bloomed.

When I was blind with malice and misery, she sat in the pit with me.

I was asking a lot of her by assigning a guardian role, but I didn’t have another choice.

This simply wasn’t a one-person job, and there was nobody else I trusted.

For all of her faults—of which there were many—Mykie was loyal.

Mykie wouldn’t judge me for what I was doing.

Mykie was capable. Nobody else met all three of these essential criteria.

We’d just have to make it work as a flawed team.

The creak of the stairs jolted me from my obsessive thoughts.

Gratitude relaxed my shoulders as I realized that Mykie had woken before Faeryn.

Her experienced liver probably processed debauchery more efficiently.

It was early morning, and I didn’t expect Faeryn to sleep off her drinks until midday, even with the remedy I gave her.

Mykie was lucky she didn’t give the poor female alcohol poisoning by giving a Drooler to an inexperienced drinker.

I had watched many a patron black out before finishing one.

Theo named the drink after how most people ended up if they were ill-prepared: drooling face down on the bartop.

Mykie nudged open the cracked door behind me. “Morning, Gray,” she muttered. I could hear the apprehension in her voice; she knew how devastating her actions had been for me.

I rose from the study chair and shook my head. “Not here,” I whispered, motioning out the door.

She nodded in understanding and stepped to the side for me to lead the way.

I walked down the hallway with Mykie on my heels, past where Faeryn was softly snoring on the couch.

The crop top Mykie had provided—much to my chagrin—had ridden up throughout the night.

I averted my gaze the moment I realized a breast was exposed.

It felt wrong to look. The same way it felt wrong to insist Faeryn sleep in my bed.

Even in my absence, I couldn’t bring myself to pressure this female into my bedroom, no matter how much I felt like she belonged there.

Seeing her on the couch ate at me. But with the power dynamic completely skewed in my favor, I would do what had to be done to make her feel that she had some control.

And somehow, I had to do that while holding a tight grip of the reins.

We walked out of the patio doors into my acre of yard, the ivy-coated brick walls shielding it from the rest of the neighborhood.

Violet and Venus’s barn was in the back right corner of the land, sectioned off by a fence of simple wooden stakes.

Usually, I’d leave their gate open, but I was hesitant to risk them staring through the windows and scaring Faeryn.

She seemed nervous around other creatures right now.

“ Monsters ” she had called the locals. My face twisted in pain at what she must have thought of me last night in my heightened state; hopefully, she wouldn’t remember my appearance or words when she awoke.

I hadn’t done my best hiding my natural features, nor had I filtered myself particularly well—another indication I was on track for disaster.

I escorted Mykie down the stone path to the left side of the yard, where a small garden grew with a white stone bench nestled under a pink flowering tree.

I tried to tend to the flora regularly, but it was challenging.

Admittedly, I lacked a green thumb, and in my darkest times, I became completely neglectful of the space.

On my rare functional days, I would do as much damage control as possible before plummeting back into despair.

The productivity was largely guilt-driven, but it was generally effective enough for the hardier plants.

Mykie sat on the mossy bench upon our arrival—I was too high-strung to join her.

I paced in silence, unsure where to start.

The urge to reprimand climbed up my throat, but I swallowed it down.

She was doing more for me than I could ever thank her for, and now was no time to make her feel unappreciated.

“I’m sorry, Graysen.” Her voice was sincere and roused me from my racing thoughts. I paused my frantic steps for a moment.

“Mykie—”

“For what it’s worth, everything was going fine until she got horny and attracted attention. I figured you wouldn’t appreciate the circling suitors, so we left.” She rubbed her neck and laughed anxiously at the confession.

My heart clenched, and I felt my palms threatening to spit flames.

Horny? Who the fuck in Theo’s pub had made her horny ?

I did taste the faint aroma on my tongue when she got home, but had foolishly hoped I was the source.

It was that, or face the reality that it was left over from the bar crawl I hadn’t been present for.

There were many good-looking Trebites there, including Theo himself, but what happened to “ monsters ”?

If she wanted to be fucked by a monster, I could…

No . Absolutely not. I loathed myself for even starting the thought.

Adding shame to my rage created a sickeningly familiar concoction.

It was a volatile solution that had gotten out of hand before.

I practiced the grounding exercises I had studied unsuccessfully for years, while gripping my fists to contain the fire licking between my fingertips.

I needed to contain them until they simmered out, lest they damage something. Or someone.

“I know I fucked up,” Mykie sighed, ignoring my obvious spiral. I knew she could smell that she had triggered a combustion. “Look, maybe I’m not the best for—”