The Secret of Spellshadow Manor 6 by Bella Forrest (books for men to read .TXT) 📕

too much, his brain unable to concentrate on what he was supposed to be doing. Short walks made him breathless and wobbly, and even talking for long periods left him exhausted. All he had seemed to do was sleep and eat and drink herbal tea, on an endless cycle that frustrated him deeply. Every time he awoke and saw Ellabell beside him, he hated himself for keeping her there. What fun was it to sit and watch someone sleep, their body and mind too useless to even chat awhile? He pitied her, his pity turning to bitterness. He had known he was hurting her with the cold things he said, and yet she had refused to go.

“I know what you’re doing,” Ellabell had said one day, sipping from a cup of coffee.

“I’m not doing anything. In case you hadn’t realized, I’m bed-bound,” he’d snapped.

“It won’t work, Alex,” she’d retorted. “You can push and push and push, but you won’t get me to go.”

After that, he’d endeavored to be nicer to her, remembering that she was there because she loved him, and he loved her. Accepting her assistance instead of resenting it, he had found himself feeling better. It wasn’t an instant fix, but the comfort of having her there had improved his mindset, allowing him to focus better on functioning like an ordinary human being, instead of using her as his verbal punching bag to vent his frustrations upon.

Shortly after that, he and Ellabell had begun to take more walks together. Soon, he could walk to the pagoda and back, with little trouble from wobbling limbs or strained breath, and he found he could go through a whole day without needing to rest. His energy improved, his appetite grew, his weakness faded, and his mind returned to him, slowly but surely.

A while later, Venus came to visit him. She had been so busy in her queenly duties that it had taken her a while, but when Alex saw her, he thought she looked happier than he’d ever seen her. There was a flush in her cheeks and glitter in her eyes, the ripple of fear no longer prevalent beneath them.

“And how is the wounded soldier?” she asked, smiling pleasantly as she sat beside his sickbed, neatly folding her legs beneath the chair, her hands resting on her knees.

“Getting there, Your Grace,” Alex replied, remembering the correct term. For some reason, though she was still strikingly beautiful, he didn’t feel the same magnetic pull he’d felt before.

She picked up a basket of fruit that Ellabell had brought for him, plucking a grape off its vine and rolling it between her fingers. “Nice to see people still bring fruit to the sick,” she said, amused, as she popped the grape into her mouth.

“Why did you do that for us?” Alex asked, skipping past the pleasantries.

“Do what?” she replied coyly, her eyes twinkling with irreverence.

Alex laughed. “Why did you set my friends free, and get the guards to stand down? If I hadn’t succeeded, you’d have been in a world of trouble.”

The queen gave a delicate shrug. “If you think I still feared my husband’s wrath by then, you are not as smart as I thought you were. Death would have been a kindness, had you not succeeded. Freeing those people would have been worth every foul word, every lash, every beating he gave as punishment.”

“How did you endure it? Julius as your husband—how did you get through it?” Alex wanted to know, in awe of her strength.

“I had a place in my mind where I would go when things became dark,” she admitted. “It was a place that was just for me… a place where Julius was nobody. My Leander was there, always there, standing by my side. After all this time, my loyalty to him never waned, even through the cruelest moments my husband could conjure up. Leander was my true love—you only get one of those, you know?” she said, with a quiet chuckle. “My life, and my marriage, were frightening and loveless after Leander’s passing, but I had the memory of him to keep me warm, and to give me strength when I had none left.”

“So you did it for him?” Alex pressed, wanting to have it clear in his mind.

She nodded. “My son and you share his blood—how could I not step in to assist, when you both needed me?”

She didn’t stay much longer, simply wanting to check on how he was, but Alex was glad she had come. With her words, he had been able to put his thoughts of Leander Wyvern to rest. Venus had loved him, and it was that love that had set his friends free.

He had just passed the three-month mark in his recovery, when Ceres came to visit him.

“Anyone home?” she asked, tapping on the front door of the treehouse.

“I’m in the kitchen,” Alex called back. Ellabell had ordered him to bake some cookies for Agatha, while she went to visit Hadrian up at the school. It was a focusing task in itself, but a fun one that meant everyone got to eat something delicious.

“Ellabell got you making cookies again?” Ceres said, amused, as she walked into the small kitchen area that Hadrian had installed.

Alex grinned. “She thinks it keeps my mind steady, going through the recipe, measuring things out. What she doesn’t know is, I just like to lick the bowl,” he chuckled.

“I hope you don’t do that before you’ve spooned the mixture out,” Ceres teased.

“With everything you people keep feeding me, I don’t need to,” he remarked, patting his stomach. “What brings you to this neck of the woods?”

“News that you’ll be pleased to hear,” she said, taking a seat on one of the high stools that sat by the kitchen door.

Alex turned to her, raising an eyebrow. “Oh?”

“I have decided to test whether your recovery is complete,” she said, smiling kindly.

Alex frowned. “Sounds painful.”

“Not painful, it just requires focus,” she said, chuckling softly. "Now, I’m going to place my