How to Keep a Fae (Coveted Fae #1)

Chapter 6

Chapter Six

Jayga

T he week-long patrol that follows August’s revelation is the longest of my life. Our horses pick their way along the darkening path in the forest as the sun begins to sink. The wind is bitter and finds every gap in my cloak.

We barely speak to one another. I fucking miss him, even if he’s a grumpy ass half the time.

I might even like that about him. The fact he doesn’t speak unless it’s necessary. The fact that he listens—the fact that I could coax a smile out of him now and then. Yeah, those moments have been fucking gold. But now, whenever I look at him, I want to rip him apart.

He’s been sitting on this the whole time. He’s fucked her. I mean, I’m not delusional in this. I know she’s with others. Not just me and him. It stands to reason. I don’t know why I presumed he’d never been with her. I thought maybe he’d mention it if he did. He didn’t. He fucking kept a secret all the while I’m spouting on about her. Laying out my heart. And acting like a fucking town crier that I’ve all but fallen for her.

Love. What place does love have in this world? It has absolutely fucking none. This life is cold and hard but for those moments when we enter the undercroft and the scented rooms of the omegas, feed from and fuck them. But more importantly, afterward, when they nestle in our arms, all sweet and soft. Those brief times when we can talk and connect on a deeper level remind me this battle is worth fighting for.

I feel fucking betrayed. I don’t know why I do. It makes no fucking sense. I pride myself on being practical.

It’s the fact he hid it from me that hurts most.

All those times he told me about how he likes to fuck, taking his omega from behind, so he can go extra deep and make them twitch and come so hard they’re nothing but a limp puddle, purring in the nest… Fuck, that sounded hot when he spoke about it. I could imagine him doing it.

Now, I imagine him doing it with her .

Fuck, how that burns… and arouses me. It’s very fucking confusing.

I also have to be honest and admit I can understand why he hid what was happening from me when I was spouting my mouth off about her hair and smiling like a love-struck sap. I might have handled it better if he’d just shrugged and said she was ordinary to him. But no. He had to twist the fucking knife in the wound. Tell me he’s obsessed. That he would kill me. He’s become like a brother to me, and he just casually stands there at the table in the warrior hall and throws down a challenge like that. Telling me that he’d end me for her .

I swallow down the bitter taste.

“We’ll stop here for the night,” the patrol leader says. The forest is dark and fucking freezing, but we make the best of it as we set up the camp and light a small fire. It’s been a dull patrol. Sometimes boring is good. Nobody got killed. And there’s been no signs of orcs.

Right now, I’d welcome a skirmish. Some pain. A reason to go back to her. But maybe it won’t be her. Maybe next time we go into the undercroft, I’ll be given to someone else, and August will get his turn.

He fucking wants her. He wants her as his mate.

I do, too. My head’s a fucking mess.

I go through the motions of taking the saddle off the horse and brushing down my gelding’s coat. Somebody puts food on. A couple of men take up the first watch.

I’m a simple man. Uncomplicated . I like fucking, and I like fighting. I like the companionship of other soldiers. I like that there are moments of respite, a chance to drink a beer.

I’d probably be dead by now if I’d stayed in Bleakness. A little street rat stealing scraps and copping a beating more often than not. The pain that I feel right now is worse than any hole in my belly because I didn’t find anything to eat.

My life felt as uncomplicated as I am until I met Adaline.

I swipe my hand down my face. Someone passes me a bowl of mash, and I take it with thanks. I eat. We’ve formed a bit of a circle. When August finishes with his horse and approaches the fire, looking for somewhere to bed down, there’s only one gap, and it’s next to me.

He grunts and tosses his bedroll down beside me. Someone passes him a bowl of food, and he tucks in.

I miss him. I miss talking to him. I don’t like this tension between us, yet I don’t know how to move past it. I don’t know what I fucking want.

For him to tell me he had no interest in her. For him to tell me she was just ordinary to him, that the woman who has come into my world like a tornado and rearranged it around her is nothing in his eyes .

I don’t like that scenario either. For some reason, that feels like pain of a different kind. We’ve come to know each other over the time we’ve patrolled together. Many months have passed. The seasons have changed. It seems obvious now that if I’m obsessed with her, he would be too.

Two men begin a lively discussion. A rumor about a soldier who has taken himself a mate.

Unsanctioned.

He’d got a whipping for it, but no one took his mate away.

I’d call that a win.

The rumor has been circulating for a while, but there is always some new theory, add-on, or fresh word from someone who knows someone who used to patrol with the alpha involved.

I listen.

I’m confident the bastard who used to be my friend is listening, too.

What if he tries? What if he wants her enough to take the risks?

Worse, what if she wants him to?