Splinter (Reliquary Series Book 2) by Sarah Fine

Author:Sarah Fine [Fine, Sarah]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781503936423
Publisher: 47North
Published: 2016-08-02T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

I sat up abruptly, still breathing hard, stunned and reeling. “Did I really just do that?” I whispered.

Biting my lip, I rose on shaky legs and pulled the sheet around my body. Asa had left the Target bag on the floor, so I scooped it up and looked inside.

A maxi skirt, size four. A bra, thirty-two B. A tank top and a short-sleeve blouse. A pair of size-six sandals. Lacy underwear small enough not to sag.

And a large package of Twizzlers.

I sank down on the bed as my eyes filled with tears, my reaction and my thoughts multidimensional, complicated. I glanced down at the engagement ring and laid my fingertip over the diamond, remembering the night Ben had put it on my finger. That feeling had been simple. Pure happiness I had been sure I would feel for the rest of my life. But here I was, betrayed over and over by the man I had loved, and who still claimed to love me.

Yet though my vision for the future had been fractured, what alternative did I have but to return to my old life? The magical world was a strange and treacherous place, and the man who had been my most reliable guide also happened to be the most complex human being I had ever known. I was drawn to him. Fascinated by him. And I cared about him. A lot. But I wouldn’t fool myself into thinking I understood him or what he wanted, or that he really wanted me.

“We’re totally wrong for each other,” I muttered as I pulled the tags from a pair of underwear. As soon as I said it, I bowed my head and laughed, embarrassed. I was glad Asa couldn’t see my thoughts—they made me feel more vulnerable than what I had just done.

Though now that I thought about it, I had lain naked and spread in front of him. I had come while he’d watched. While he’d stayed fully clothed and fully in control, I had literally laid myself bare.

I had to face him again. Soon. How the heck would I look him in the eye?

I groaned and tore the Twizzlers package open, gobbling down a few of the plasticky red ropes, but it only triggered more memories of Asa.

I got dressed, delighted when I found a package of hair scrunchies at the very bottom of the bag. I spent one moment wishing for a mirror and the next deciding that it was probably a mercy that I didn’t have one, took a deep breath, and emerged from the camper, half expecting Asa to be waiting outside.

He was nowhere in sight. What was in sight . . . “Whoa,” I whispered, staring around me at a field of gingerbread houses, a few of which appeared to belong to elves, who waved cheerfully at me from the windows. An honest-to-God unicorn was contained in a paddock just to my left. It glanced over at me with pale-blue eyes, lifted its tail, and nonchalantly expelled a stream of glitter out its hind end.

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