Adrift by Elizabeth A Reeves

Author:Elizabeth A Reeves
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9781479186006
Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform
Published: 2012-08-24T14:00:00+00:00

I washed my hands at the old pump near the garden and set the basket of potatoes on the back step. I could feel the ocean breathing and calling to me, but I set myself against it, and instead turned to where the woods rambled and tumbled in graceful chaos.

My bare feet felt cool and soft against the bark of a fallen tree as I climbed over it. Moss grew all along it and I dug my toes into it, savoring nature’s own velvet.

Kip leapt up beside me before I even noticed that he was there. I looked down and around and found Devin sitting on the mossy ground, leaning his back against an aspen tree, his arms folded on his knee and a deep expression on his face. He glanced up at me and I could feel myself shiver with the cold of his icy regard.

I had never set out to hurt him. I had never even considered, for a moment, that I could. His anger… his malice, his bitterness… it left me burning with frustration.

He stood up, brushing debris from his pants, turning his back on me.

“You have Fae blood, too,” I said slowly, calmly, trying to hide from him the rage that was seething under the very surface of my skin, burning like lava. I hoped my nose wasn’t turning red, as it always did when I was upset. I curled my hands into fists, trying to calm the pounding in my chest.

“Yes,” he said slowly, turning, but not truly looking at me. “And?”

“So how do you know that you aren’t the one that is in my thrall instead of you always assuming that I am in yours? You are as Fae and as mortal as I am.”

The look on his face would have made me laugh under any other circumstances. His mouth opened, but nothing came out. He closed it again and cleared his throat, then swallowed, then cleared his throat again.

“Honestly,” he said, in a low voice, “that possibility never crossed my mind.”

“And,” I said, boldly, “did it ever cross your mind that neither of us is under any kind of spell at all? That we just happen to like each other? Don’t you trust me enough to know that? Don’t you even trust yourself?”

He stared at me for a long time. When he did answer his voice was very low. “No.”

I gaped at him. How could he not even trust himself? He turned his back to me.

“Don’t I deserve some kind of explanation?” I demanded, my voice cracking. “I think this matters enough for at least that much.”

Devin sighed and rubbed his face with his hands. He gestured me closer. “Look,” he said, his voice low, “it’s complicated. Really complicated.”

I nodded.

“When I was ten years old,” he began, “my dad was my hero. He was my whole world. I wanted only to make him happy-- to make him proud of me. I was going to grow up to be him when I got older, not just be like him, but actually be him.

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