Page 70 of Fae Unleashed
“Your ghost looks familiar,” Addie said finally. “I mean, yeah. You look familiar because you’re my friend, but it’s more than that. There’s a divine aura around you, too.”
I gaped in shock. “But I’m not a goddess!”
“Well, neither am I,” Addie said with a nonchalant shrug. “Yet here we are, each divine somehow. I mean, even Vi has a divine aura. Ness kind of has one, too—”
I cocked my head. “Do you think that’s why Audra pulled us together? What does that mean for us? Does Audra have plans for us? I have too many questions now.”
Addie ran a hand through her hair and tugged, as if to let out the steam gathering under her skin from the churning of the gears in her mind. Vi appeared beside her, looked at Addie, looked in my direction, then looked back at Addie.
“Who are you talking to?” Vi asked.
Addie jerked her chin in my direction. “Cerri is still here. She’s a ghost of some sort.”
Vi immediately lit up, figuratively and literally. A glow bloomed under her skin when she waved ecstatically at my glass coffin. It was like the magic here messed with Vi’s control. There as so much arcana in the air that Vi couldn’t help but glow a bit.
“Your boyfriend seems down in the dumps. Has anyone told him that you’re alive?” Vi gestured to Rhoan.
“He’s not my boyfriend,” I said before remembering that Vi couldn’t hear me.
It was no use. Vi marched up to Rhoan and tapped the tip of his nose, eliciting a deep growl from the beast. Undaunted, Vi grinned. She cupped his beastly face and said:
“Don’t you worry. Your mate is right here! We just need to figure out how to put her back into her body. That’s all.”
Rhoan narrowed his eyes at Vi before looking up at me. The light in those dark orbs belonged to the beast. The man I loved was nowhere to be found in this moment. My stomach would have dipped if I had one.
The beast could see me, but Rhoan couldn’t because he wasn’t here.
“Can you give him back to me?” I asked softly.
The beast stared at me. It remained unmoving, like it couldn’t understand me even though I knew it could. Its disobedience brought a scowl to my lips.
“Come on. Give Rhoan back to me!”
But it couldn’t. I realized that the reason the beast ignored me was that it couldn’t obey my request. Rhoan was trapped inside him.
Vi sniffled. “Hmmm.”
She and Addie shared a look.
“Should we call the guys? Do you think they’ll know how to bring a beast back from the brink of grief?” Vi asked.
Tal interjected. “Rhoan isn’t a shifter. He’s a fae chimera. You cannot possibly treat the two as the same. While one is a mortal beast, the other is a creation of nightmares.”
The beast growled grumpily at Tal, as if the insult had truly hurt its feelings. To which, Tal threw both hands in the air.
“You are, though!”
I could help but laugh. The tension from the earlier fight had bled away. My friends and allies had pulled together to come help me. Things weren’t all right by any means, but we were on the right path forward. Right now, I was in good hands.
Once Addie helped me back into my body, I would focus on getting Rhoan back. I didn’t think that the curse had taken him. That couldn’t be it, or else he would be in Faust’s hands.
“Might I remind you all that Lady Beryl is currently recuperating. She will come back with a stronger curse to place upon the princess. Our time right now is limited.” Tal put both hands on his hips and kept his narrow-eyed glare on Rhoan.
“He needs to take the stick out of his ass,” I mumbled.
Addie giggled behind the hand she put over her own mouth. Tal gave her a questioning side-eye.
Nonetheless, Addie went to work. Her blue-fire arcana grabbed ahold of me and tugged gently. I had a feeling that she’d meant to shove me back into my body, but her arcana could only invite me to move. It couldn’t force me to do anything.
