A Kingdom of Thorns and Envy (Evernight Fae Book 9) by Angela M Hudson

Author:Angela M Hudson [Hudson, Angela M]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2022-06-30T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty-Five

Cami

* * *

As I headed up from the rundown old vet clinic on the far side of the farm, Aerik came out from the chicken coop and walked alongside me. He had hay in his hair and flecks of mud all up the base of his trousers from the newly fallen snow melting now with the unusual spike of winter heat and then rain.

“You look like you need a shower,” I noted.

Aerik sniffed his armpit. “Yep. Still got the smell of sex on me from last night.”

“Gross.” I laughed, shoving him sideways, right as a shadow on the ground lifted my attention to the man standing there ahead of us. We both stopped dead and I gasped, launching forward into a run until my arms were around his neck. “James! What are you doing here?”

He held me tenderly, the way a man would a woman who he was never supposed to hold again, and exhaled into my shoulder. The warmth of his breath was so familiar that I just felt safe for a moment. “I didn’t expect this kind of reception.”

I drew back slowly, feeling the push of pain that I’d locked away all these months and going back, like a cloud coming over the day, to when he unbound us and I told him to leave.

Suddenly, the lingering feel of his breath along my neck made me want to shirk out of my coat and wash it.

“Reflex action,” I said humbly, standing back beside Aerik again to make a point. “What are you doing here?”

“I…” He looked at Aerik, both reading his body language for any hostility, like this was some pissing contest, and making a point with that same gaze that he didn’t want him here. “Can we talk?” he said directly to me. “Alone.”

Aerik jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “I’ll just go down and finish clearing out the clinic,” he offered.

“Thanks,” I said, hugging myself in the icy air. “I’ll come find you soon.”

“Yeah, don’t mention it,” he responded, but there was an ache beneath his tone that sounded oddly familiar to me. My nose hurt from the cold and the back of my throat felt dry by the time Aerik had walked far away enough that James was ready to talk, and I could smell, even now, that a new snow would fall before morning.

“I need to explain something to you,” James said, watching after Aerik, “something I knew you would not hear the day I unbound us.”

“You have until we reach the house, and then you’re leaving,” I demanded.

James followed me, keeping up easily with my brisk pace, even in the slippery mud-grass. “I wasn’t ready to leave yet,” he explained. “Nor to be unbound. There were things I had to do, places I needed to go, but leaving you… it was too soon. I could have stayed for many more months—”

“If I hadn’t told you to go.”

“Yes. I—”

“I didn’t want you to stay, James,” I reminded him, flicking half an angry gaze his way before jerking it back to the path ahead.

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