He presses his lips together as he watches me with his eerie stare. Breathes in through his nose, then exhales on a harsh sigh.
“Riley,” he begins.
Nope. I’ve heard enough of it.
“Go away. You have to leave? Leave. I don’t want to talk to you anymore.”
“This again?”
Yup. This again. Just like when I got pissed off at Nine while we were facing off in the cemetery, I’m pushing him away.
It’s all I know how to do.
No. Now that he’s trusted me with his true name, I know how to push him even harder.
“Ninetroir—”
His eyes flash in an open warning. “You said there wouldn’t be a command.”
I did say that.
“And you said that we weren’t friends,” I say coldly. Then, before he can say a word, I cross my hands over my chest. “Ninetroir, I command you to go.”
He immediately winks out of the sewer.
I gulp and, slinking down to the hard ground, tears making it even harder to see in the orange glow of Rys’s lantern, I lift Nine’s scrap of silk up to my face and rub roughly at the corners of my eyes. It erases the tears, blocking out the light at the same time. Embracing the darkness, I move the silk so that’s in front of my mouth, my nose.
My breath is shaky. One lungful of air in, though, and all I get is a whiff of Nine. The silk carries his scent. I twist it between my gloved fingers, pressing it against my face.
You know what else it’s good for?
Muffling my sobs as I realize that, once again, I sent away the only friend I had.
This sucks.
6
So, Nine was right.
I regret it all the next morning after I cry myself to sleep. And I mean all of it. From the way I told him how I felt while riding high from his touch magic, to my bratty reaction when he couldn’t give me what I want… I don’t know what the hell I was thinking.
The answer to that is easy, I guess. I’m not too sure I was thinking.
Crap.
I’m so freaking embarrassed. I can’t believe I threw myself at him like that. What’s wrong with me? What made me think that, despite the crush I’ve harbored for way too many years, Nine would actually be interested in me? Shoot, half the time I’m not even sure he likes me.
My Shadow Man, he’s… I don’t know, like an otherworldly creature with powers I can’t even begin to understand. And I’m Riley Thorne, a human who’s only involved with the fae and Faerie because of a prophecy that I can’t escape from.
I’m the Shadow.
Whatever the hell that means.
Oh, Rys told me. Nine did, too. This prophesied chick who’s supposed to act like a savior for the fae. Don’t know why they think that should be me but, as both of the fae admitted, it doesn’t really matter what I think. So long as the Fae Queen believes I’m out for her head, she won’t leave me alone.
Isn’t that peachy?
Peach…