Trust Excerpt 5: Exhaustion

 “If you pass out it, it will result with you being in bed, and all of us worried about you,” he said.

“Fine,” I replied with a sigh. “I’ll get in bed, but someone is going to bring me some of that stuff from the box to go over.”

“You need rest,” he said as he picked me up. “Now.”

“I need answers to all of these questions,” I said, scrambling to hold on to him.

“Rayna wants to come up here and talk to you by herself for a minute,” he said. “I’m going to make food while she talks to you, and then we can figure out what to do next. You and I still have some things to talk about.”

“I was hoping you were going to let us move on from that now,” I said.

He carried me up the stairs and placed me softly on the bed. I leaned back into the headboard and he pressed a soft kiss to my temple. He let his lips linger for moment before giving me a soft smile and going back down the stairs to get Rayna.

I closed my eyes and tipped my head back. Everything was such a mess. Nothing made any sense. I was tired all the time. My body and my magic were both sore. Rayna came running up the stairs.

“How are you?” Rayna asked as she jumped on the edge of the bed. “I was worried about you.”

“I’m doing ok,” I said. “I’m just tired. You did good today.”

“I told you, I just wanted to help,” she said. “I can help you.”

She scooted over to me and lifted my arm so she could lay against me. She wrapped her arms around me and sighed. She'd never had comfort before. I knew she hadn’t, but how quickly she sought it out concerned me. She wasn’t standoffish at all. She was temperamental, but not standoffish. I wasn’t sure what to make of it.

“My shadows like you,” she said. “They talk about you a lot.”

“What do they say about me?”

“They tell me you're upset a lot, but you don’t tell people. They think you should tell James and Nic,” she said.

“What makes you think I don’t tell them?” I asked.

“You don’t tell everything,” she said. “They can feel it.”

“Well,” I said, squeezing her tighter. “Let your shadows know I am working on it.”

She went quiet as we sat there. I still needed to talk to Kathrine about taking Rayna out there. It would be best if it very few people saw her. We didn’t know the full scope of what she could do and how hard it was for her to control it. 

(All excerpts are taken from a lightly edited first draft. Contents may change or be removed entirely from the finished book.)