Ever After by Kate Serine

Author:Kate Serine [SeRine, Kate]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Romance, Paranormal, Fantasy
ISBN: 9781601832504
Google: U6dIAwAAQBAJ
Amazon: 1601833253
Publisher: eKensington
Published: 2014-08-02T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter 14

I didn’t realize I’d fallen asleep next to Arabella until a shuffle of movement in the semidarkness of the room jolted me awake. When I didn’t feel her in my arms, panic gripped me. I shot to my feet, calling out her name on a gasp. “Arabella?”

As soon as the word crossed my lips, I saw her sitting in a nearby chair, tying her boots. She paused, her eyes trained on me, and I felt her sigh more than heard it. She was running away again, I knew, even before I asked, “Going somewhere?”

She held my gaze for a moment, wavering between truth and lie. “Gideon . . .”

I shook my head. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” I said on a bitter laugh. “You’re still running? After what happened earlier today? After what we just went through? For chrissake, Arabella! Do you even realize what’s happening to you?”

She turned her head away, unable to look me in the eyes. “You know then.”

“Aye, I do now,” I said, raising my arms to my sides, exasperated. “You should’ve told me!”

Her head whipped around, her anger rolling off her as she leapt to her feet. “Why?” she demanded. “What good would it have done?”

I closed the distance between us in one stride, taking hold of her shoulders. “I can help you.”

“Can you?” she shot back. “Really? You have the secret cure for fading then? You’ve found the answer where all the best medical minds among the Tales have failed?”

I closed my eyes for a moment, not willing to admit she was right. I shook my head. “Of course not,” I said. “But there are ways to slow the process. The fairy dust—”

“Is just delaying the inevitable,” she interrupted, her tone more pitying than angry. When I opened my mouth to argue, she took my face in her hands. “You know it as well as I do.”

I shook my head vehemently, not willing to admit defeat. “No, I refuse to believe—”

She pulled me down to her, silencing my protest with a kiss, and another. When the kiss ended, I pressed my forehead to hers, closing my eyes against the blur gathering there.

“I’m dying, Gideon,” she said, putting the horrible truth into words. “We have to face that.”

“Trish thinks she can reverse it if we figure out the reason you’re fading,” I assured her. “We can beat this.”

She stepped back and turned away from me, wrapping her arms around herself. “There won’t be a we, Gideon,” she said after a moment. “I’m not staying.”

“Don’t be daft, lass,” I reasoned, trying to keep my voice calm even though my heart was racing at the prospect of her running away again. “Of course, you’re staying. You need treatment, Arabella.”

“I never should’ve come to you in the first place,” she sighed, running a hand through her hair. “It was selfish of me. I had no right to do this to you.”

I went to her and turned her around to face me. “Do what to me?”

She lifted her hand and caressed my cheek, her eyes filling with sorrow.

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