Ravage by Lacey Andersen (ebook reader online txt) 📕

Bron curses and kneels down. “That is not what you should’ve gotten out of that story.”

Her gaze sharpens. “No? Was I just supposed to realize that you all abandoned Rayne when he needed you most?”

Her words are like a blow. A fucking dagger to the heart, because she’s absolutely right.

But she doesn’t stop. “Or that you guys could’ve saved him if you’d just been with him?”

“Esmeray.” Lucian sounds like he’s about to lose all control.

“What was he researching?” she asks again, her tone cold and controlled.

I feel numb as I answer her. “He realized that all the documents on the dark fae have been altered and edited. Pages are missing. And there are huge chunks of our history that don’t make sense. He felt that someone was trying to erase very important information about the connection between light fae and dark fae.”

“And what did he discover?” Her face was a mask of calm, even though she’d just destroyed us.

I shake my head, trying to speak around the lump in my throat. “He kept his research somewhere down here, hidden. He said it was too dangerous for us to know. That if we found out, the people targeting him would target us too.”

She frowns, her mask wavering. “That doesn’t make sense. You were all down here. Why would only Rayne be targeted?”

I exchange a glance with Bron and Lucian. I don’t want to keep talking about this. I want to lie in the dark and try to pull the pieces of my heart back together. But I started this, and I can’t stop now, so I force myself to continue. “Well, first he stole things, even from the dean himself, to get these tunnels opened. They were guarded by spells that made it impossible to enter them. And when he broke them, they were keyed to know who was responsible for it. From the first day, there were several teachers and even the dean who started treating him differently. It was how we started to suspect who was hiding the secrets.”

“There’s more,” she says.

Bron curses. “Isn’t this enough, Esmeray? Isn’t your brother dying for a pointless cause enough?”

She doesn’t back down. “What aren’t you telling me?”

“Fuck!” Bron shouts, leaping to his feet and pacing away from Esmeray.

She rises to her feet and follows him. She grabs the back of his shirt, and he looks back at her. “Tell me!”

“You don’t want to know.”

“I do.” Her voice is almost a growl.

“Trust me...” he says.

“I don’t,” she throws back at him.

He bites his lip and looks at me for help. But I’ve said enough. I can’t…I can’t say this.

“Stop lying to me!”

And Bron explodes. “We weren’t the ones lying to you, Esmeray! Did you ever think about that? Did you ever think your brother might be the liar?”

She slaps him, and the sound seems to echo through the room.

Lucian rises to his feet and so do I. Tension swims between us, and I can feel within Esmeray emotions so powerful that they’re thrashing against the walls she’s created. If she doesn’t let them out soon, I have no idea what will happen. I’ve never met someone who could keep something like that inside.

Bron rubs his face and squares off with her. I can see it in his face. He’s debating. Debating about what’s worse: walking away now, or ruining her memory of her brother.

“I--”

Bron’s gaze slams with mine, and I stop talking.

He looks back at Esmeray. “Your brother killed someone. With his mind.”

She pulls back and her eyes are wide. “That’s impossible. He was a light fae.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes!”

Bron shifts closer to her, leaning over her. “Well, he did. And…he started talking to ghosts.”

Esmeray moves away from him, then shifts directions. Her hands move, but she doesn’t seem to know what to do with herself. “He was never able to… There’s nothing about him… This can’t be true. No, Rayne would’ve told me. He would’ve…”

We watch her unravel, feeling helpless. She paces. She wrings her hands.

And then she whirls toward us, and her arms open at her sides. When her emotions unleash, none of us are prepared for it. We crumble to our knees as helpless anger, loss, and grief pour and pour from her. It’s so overwhelming that for too long I’m lost in her emotions, completely unaware of my own feelings, or even my own body.

Is that what she’s been holding back? I hate myself for not being there for her. For doing nothing to ease this kind of mind-numbing suffering.

It’s strange. When I come back to myself, we’re all around her. Sitting in a pile on the floor holding her as emotions roll off of her until we slowly feel them easing. She’s breathing hard, tears rolling down her face.

“We all miss him so much,” Lucian whispers.

“He’s all I had.” She brushes the tears from her face as the words come tumbling out.

I can’t help myself. I catch her hand. “That’s not true.”

“It is,” she says. “I had you guys but then…then something changed, and I lost you.”

I can’t stop as I stroke her wrist. “You never lost us. We were just giving you time.”

“Time for what?” she asks.

I want to tell her the truth, but I can’t. “Time to grow up. Because the way we felt about you…it wasn’t the same.”

Her eyes widen. Hell. Did I say too much?

And then she leans forward and kisses me. I’m so shocked that for a minute I don’t react. I see Bron’s hands go to her waist as she leans forward in his lap, and Lucian’s jaw drops open from beside us. And then I close my eyes and give into the sensation of her soft lips on mine.

I’m lost to the world, to everything except her. Her lips part and her tongue slips inside, and I can’t think. My cock hardens, and I just enjoy this moment, knowing that soon it’ll be over. Soon she’ll put up her walls again, closing us off from her, and this is all we’ll