Chapter 55

I wake up feeling more on edge than I have in a while. A restless energy fizzles through my blood making it hard for me to sit still. The hollow ache in my chest I started feeling the moment Damion walked out the door spreads. It stretches further now, bringing with it a gnawing empty loneliness that I can't seem to shake no matter how hard I try.

I was only now realizing how much I've been relying on Damion-how much I've used him as a support, a crutch, these past few weeks. Now that he's gone, it's like my entire sense of gravity's shifted and I no longer have that steady constant presence keeping my feet planted on the ground and a large part of me is floundering.

I'd spent most of my life on my own, and I'd figure out how to navigate being on my own again.

*Snap out of it, Lily. You're fine. Everything's fine. Get your shit together.*

My stomach clenches with cramps as I get up from the bed, but I push the uncomfortable feelings to the side as best as I can. The surge of energy I got yesterday from the springs has dissipated to the point of nearly being gone and the ensuing crash I'm feeling from it is more brutal than I'd been expecting. Once I reconnect to the source I'd probably feel as good as I did yesterday.

There's a knock at my door just as I'm finish slipping into one of the fresh silken robes the elves had left in my room-this one in a deep shade of blue. I pause at the doorway, my hand hesitates on the knob.

"It's us," Arden's familiar voice calls through the wood of the door. I twist open the locks, revealing my two shifter guards waiting just outside my doorway.

I send both of them a smile, opening the door wider to let them in. Arden's eyes linger on the dark puffiness around my eyes, and she winces sympathetically, "Rough night?" She asks me as she sidesteps me to satisfy her curiosity in taking stock of my room.

"You could say that." Despite the fact that I was still exhausted from traveling and recovering from the fever's effects on my body, I had barely been able to sleep. Most of my night had been spent tossing and turning, trying my best not to worry about Damion and if he was safe and failing miserably.

I finally fall into an exhausted, restless sleep as the first light of dawn caressed the windowsill, peeking into the room. But even now, I can't seem to get rid of the nagging voice in my head telling me that the attacks on the borders are my fault. I can't get rid of the idea that someone would get injured or worse and that thought alone is enough to tie my stomach in knots.

"Do you have any idea of when we'll hear from them?" I ask, trying not to let the hope I'm feeling seep into my voice and failing miserably. I'm not really expecting him to have sent anything along yet, but I can't stop myself from asking.

Arden's face twists sympathetically, "We most likely won't hear from anyone for at least a few days--until the business with the Unseelie is cleared up. The King won't want to risk sending a messenger back this way and possibly leading any Unseelie right to you. And the rest of the elves."

"We were told that elder Aelrie is going to come accompany you to the springs for another session," Xavier explains, arms crossing over his chest and his eyes scan the room the same way Arden is as if he's checking and re-checking for any possible danger that could pop out at any moment.

I don't comment on the way he's reverted back to the overly- serious -and -grumpy Xavier that he was when I'd first met him though. Instead follow my two guards to the dining hall to get some breakfast. I force down some food at Arden and Xavier's insistence, but the worry swirling inside makes anything I swallow stick to my throat and my stomach churn uncomfortably.

The dining hall is more crowded this morning than it had been when we were here last night. Groups of elves in flowing silky fabrics pass by, their eyes lingering curiously on our small group, but no one approaches us. I imagine that it's been a while since they've had anyone they don't immediately recognize in their city. The stares would make me self- conscious if I wasn't watching them pass with just as much curiosity as they were watching me.

Elder Aelrie finds me at breakfast to take me back to the springs and after a short trek through the same wooded path as yesterday, she leaves me to scurry up the peaceful forest path alone. Birds chirp and warm yellow sunshine heats my bare shoulders where they poke out from beneath the short towel I'm wrapped in as I step up to the misting springs.

The crashing waterfall that flows nearby scatters mist through the sunlight making rainbows of color to coalesce on the soft forest floor. Here alone this time, I see the space with new eyes, giving it my focus. I've never been anywhere so beautiful in my life.

Stepping back in the waters brings a reaction in my body similar to what it had been the first time. As I settle into the sparkling water, I'm greeted by the magical electric currents that flow into my skin and prickles their way through my veins. As I relax into the rippling surface, that same feeling I'd experienced yesterday- that jolt of power - tingles through my body, heating my skin and my blood.

Because I'm expecting it, though, the unusual sensation doesn't overwhelm me as it had yesterday. I feel myself breathe easier the longer I let myself soak, let the electrified currents overtake me and fill me up.

Like yesterday, someone comes to get me when it's time to get out and wrapped in a towel, I head back to the dressing area. Elder Aelrie eyes me thoughtfully as I step out of the dressing room back in the same robed dress I'd worn this morning.

"I was informed," she says in her low smooth voice, "that your shifter King had to leave past the wall last night to attend to business back in his lands."

*Your shifter King*. Something about her calling him *mine*, does something to my heart, and it feels like it swells in my chest giving a hard, heavy thump. I want to tell her that he's not really mine-not officially.

I mean, he isn't is he? Maybe he is? The thought makes me chew anxiously on my lower lip. Everything happened so fast yesterday that we never really had the chance to discuss it.

Flashes of my afternoon with Damion flicker through my memory, and my cheeks prick with heat as I recall the words he'd murmured in the dim light of his bedroom, that overwhelming intent black gaze focused solely on me-

*"Before the bond ever snapped into place-before there was any reason to it-I felt drawn to you in a way that I've never felt before. So I don't want you to think or worry that I feel trapped in any way. You make me feel things I never even knew were possible."*

The heat in my cheeks blazes hotter as memories of everything we'd done *afterward* quickly follow. The ragged growl in his chest, the dark scarlet in his eyes that darkened as my body clamped around his fingers. I have to force those memories away and remind myself where I'm at. *This isn't exactly an appropriate time to be having these kinds of thoughts.*

"How are you taking the separation?" Aelrie asks, interrupting my embarrassingly heated barrage of intrusive thoughts. I blink back into focus on the elven woman standing beside me, a surprisingly concerned look has overtaken her face, "As I told you yesterday," she continues, "when I stumbled upon you and the King in the tunnel, I was able to sense that your energies were already mixing. So I imagine you are facing some symptoms of withdrawal now that there's physical distance between you two."

"Withdrawal?" I ask, confused.