Page 18 of Pretty Little Shadow
"Hiding from you, probably."
I scoffed.
"I'm kidding. She's reading. Probably trying to give us privacy, since we all know she's on Dare's side in this situation."
"Tell me exactly what he told you last night. And what he did. And what you did. And what Merrily said. You were talking about me behind my back, weren't you? What has everyone been saying? Did you know he was going to be my mate? I?—"
"I'm serious, Rae. Take a fucking breath."
I resumed glaring at him while he put a pot of water on the stove and added salt to it.
But I did try to take a breath.Onebreath. It did nothing to help.
My gaze flicked down to my leg. After a beat of uncertainty, then anxiety, I yanked the super loose fabric up my leg and stared down at the mark.
I'd expected a small bargain mark on some part of my body, after our deal. He'd mentioned he would release me from it when he propositioned me the first time, so I thought it would disappear pretty soon after we hooked up.
The mark wasn't small, though. And it wasn't going to disappear. Not unless I mated with someone other than Darius, which sounded even worse than being tied to Dare for the rest of my life.
It was a massive, dark gray mark that covered the outer half of my thigh, swirling down toward my knee and curling to a stop a little above it. It went up the entire side of my thigh and over my hip, too, completely hiding some of my floral tattoos, and shadowing a few others.
I stared at it for a solid minute before dropping the pants back over my leg and deciding I'd be better off pretending it didn't exist.
Then I pulled my knees to my chest, curling up in a ball on the chair, and fighting off my rising fear.
I wasn't trapped. I wasn't a prisoner.
I wasn't back in the cellar.
I had to remind myself of that.
"Merrily and I thought there was a possibility of you being mates," Grayson admitted. "The situation with Darius has been difficult for their family for a long time. For him, mostly. If we told you it was possible, we would've been breaking his trust. If we told him, we would've been breaking yours. We decided we had to stay out of it and just let things happen."
"You want me to believe that the fae royals thought I belonged to Darius anddidn'tget involved," I said into my knees. "Callum was the one who told you about Merrily. All of those bastards are pushy and difficult."
"Mer has sway with them, and Dare wasn't letting himself consider it a possibility, so yeah. They agreed to stay out of it for a few months. I don't know what they would've done if it went on longer than that. Probably figured out a way to meddle.Did anything happen that made you think they were getting involved?"
"No," I admitted.
"Whatdidhappen?"
"I don't know. I couldn't stop thinking about him. You know I get really obsessed with things."
"TV shows or video games, usually."
"Right. Or takeout food places. But I was just… obsessed with him. I thought if I just saw him and took him up on his offer of a bargain, I could get him out of my head. I thought it was just a sexual awakening or something."
"At twenty-six?"
"I'm aware that it's ridiculous, Grayson. Mistakes were clearly made."
"The obsession part is actually normal. You know I was the same way with Merrily. Liv's mate was so obsessed with her that he refused to accept their breakup and kept sleeping with a blanket that smelled like both of them."
"Really?" I perked up, just a tiny bit.
"Yeah. Niall was way worse than either of us were."
"I guess that's good." I'd never been less obsessive than someone else. "I was even tracking Darius. There's a website. Someone updates it constantly. I'm sure everyone on the internet knows where my apartment is now, because they literally follow him everywhere."
