Page 67 of Hunted By Fae

This, right here, is what held me back from telling her everything. I knew the time would come. I never intended on keeping it a secret forever. It needed to be said, but…

Tesni is fragile.

She is strength in many ways.

I have seen her throat-punch a fully grown man—the kind of man who has no hesitation in knocking down a woman—because he stepped on her shoes at the bar and when she demanded an apology, he told her to fuck off.

So she throat-punched him, then brought her glass down on his head.

But I also saw that, immediately after, she ducked into the crowd and bolted.

She ran.

Because underneath it, Tesni is afraid. She’s not brave, she is reactive.

The fear lives in her, it is constant but hidden. It lurks behind a mask. One look at her, and that pale, oval face might seem cold and uncaring.

A mere glance at her, at the constant pucker of her mouth as though she judges everything and everyone around her, and one will not see that it is just Tess biting down on the edges of her tongue or the insides of her cheeks because it helps her ground herself in an uncertain environment surrounded by uncertain people.

I see the mask, I read it, and I consider the cracks in it—and it cracks now.

Her face twists as she tugs away from the basin. Her back turns on me as she moves for the folded clothes on the stool.

Her denial comes with no words, just actions, and she dresses herself as though I didn’t speak at all.

But there is more to tell her.

So, as she drops onto the edge of the tub, and snatches off the leggings from the clothes pile, I explain, “The light fae,litalves, are the ones of lore. They use bridges—gateways between the worlds—to visit this one. The dark ones don’t come here.”

Tesni doesn’t look at me as she gently unrolls thick baseball socks over her feet. “Apparently they do,” she murmurs.

I nod, faint, contemplative, and my mouth tucks inwards. I consider her as she snatches the jeans from the pile, then wrestles and shimmies them on.

“Yes. They are here now. The blackout is the darkness from their world—and the dark ones came with it.”

Tess throws a dull, lifeless look up at me before she pulls on a woollen sweater.

“The light fae have never sought to end all of humanity,” I tell her. “The same can’t be said about the dark ones.”

Her hands slap to her face, fingertips pressing into the ridge of her brow, as if to push against a growing headache.

Then she drops her hands, and they slap to her lap. The look she throws at me is accusatory. “How do you know all this?”

My tongue darts over my chapped lips. Hesitation grips me for a moment, a moment of quiet that lures a frown onto her features.

“Tell me,” she demands and pushes up from the edge of the tub. Her stares hollows out into pits of nothingness. Her upper lip curls to bare her teeth before she snaps into a hiss, “Tell meright fucking now, Bee—what the fuck is going on?”

I cut my gaze down at the water puddled on the tiles.

Can’t bring myself to look at her for this one.

“I am fae.”

My heartbeat is thumping in my chest and the ice-burn of Tesni’s hollow stare pierces into me like shards of glass pressing into the curve of my eyeballs.

The steadydrip, drip, dripof the leaky tap water into the tub is all I hear—

Until Tesni loosens a harsh breath.