Page 32 of Outcast Fae

By dawn, I was a shell of a fae, as worn out as I’d ever been.

But Vaughn was still alive.

In fact, he looked a bit better. He was no longer breaking into cold sweats and didn’t moan or rock as much. The skin around the bite was still swollen, but the bite marks were not oozing any longer.

He might live after all.

A wave of relief came over me and, I must’ve dozed off sitting up. The next thing I noticed, I woke with my head on my knees and someone’s hand squeezing mine.

A hand?

I lifted my head and found Vaughn’s eyes open.

He gripped my fingers, his gaze roving over my face, yet not really seeing me. “Thank… you.”

“You’re… welcome.”

Was he talking to me or, in his delirium, thinking I was someone else? If he knew it was me, would he dare to hold my hand and squeeze it affectionately?

“Rest now,” I said, patting his hand. It was so large it made mine look like a child’s.

“I… can’t rest. The children.”

Children? My ears perked up. “What did you say?”

His eyelids fluttered as the fever threatened to take him under once more. For a moment, I thought he was unconscious again, but then his lips parted.

“The children. They have them. Here.”

Chapter Twelve

I scrambledover to Vaughn and peered straight into his face. “What are you talking about? What children?”

He opened his mouth to say something but instead began coughing. I grabbed the jug of water to dribble some into his mouth, but it was empty—not even a drop left. I growled and threw it aside.

Vaughn cleared his throat and, slowly, his coughing fit passed. His eyes drifted closed.

“Hey, what children?” I asked insistently, leaning closer.

For an instant, his eyelids fluttered open and his green eyes met mine. They still looked fatigued and a bit delirious. He was just rambling. That was all. Right?

His head slumped to the side as she drifted away.

I stayed there for a moment, peering into his face as if I might glean some answers from his expression. The children. He’d said they had children here. Could they havemychildren? Dean McIntosh said they’d been taken, too. I hadn’t seen what happened after I’d been abducted, but another van could have snuck them away in the middle of the night. It made sense. But, if so, then where were they?

No, they couldn’t be here out in the wilderness being put to the test like us. That thought was too terrible.

Twisting my hands the way Daniella did, I paced the cave, deep in thought. Questions swirled inside my mind, one especially.

What kind of Supernatural was Vaughn?

Was it possible that, somehow, he had read my thoughts and had seen the worry that gnawed at my bones? What I wanted most in the world was to leave this place and find Arryn, Wren, Linas, and the others to ensure their safety. I was aware that there were powerful warlocks and mentalists who could steal your deepest secrets. For all I knew, Vaughn was one of them, and he was messing with my head. But would he do that after I had just saved his life?

I glanced at his prone shape. His eyes were roving around behind closed eyelids as his head jerked from side to side and his lips moved, whispering unintelligible words.

He appeared helpless and more sick than spiteful. Yet, I couldn’t trust him—not after what he had done to one of my own.

Tearing my attention away from him, I searched for the others and realized they weren’t inside the cave. Blinking at the sunlight coming into our east-facing refuge, I went outside but found no signs of the others. A shock of panic rang through me. Had I missed an attack in the middle of the night? No, there were no signs of struggle.