Anastasia (The Bolton Series Book 1) by Heaven Lyanne Flores Page B

was a little mad that no one warned me about the side effects.
    We continued to walk to the palace. Cabel carried Arabella, holding her close to his chest. He murmured soothing words to her even though I was sure she couldn’t hear him. His kindness seemed unusually to me. The way he carried and spoke to her showed just how much Arabella meant to him.
    When the palace came into view, Emilie ran out of the door. She held a small stone in her hand as she made her way to Arabella. She started to say something under her breath as she held the stone over Arabella’s wound. Slowly the skin started to fuse together until a faint pink line was left.
    She then moved to Weldon, who Yelson still carried, and repeated the same spell three times, once over his face, then his chest, then his broken leg. After a minute, his wounds subsided leaving nothing in their wake.
    “Let’s go lay them down.” Cabel walked into the palace to the living room with everyone in tow. He put Arabella down on the loveseat and Yelson put Weldon on the couch across from it. We then left them to rest and went into the kitchen. Emilie shut the doors that separated the two rooms once we were all in.
    “How could you let this happen? You know none of you are to be out of the village lines,” Cabel quietly yelled at Yelson, as he did not want to disturb Arabella or Weldon.
    “I know, sir. It was stupid on my part.”
    “It wasn’t Yelson fault,” I spoke up in his defense. “We all wanted to go out there for the day. We’ve had it planned for days.”
    “It does not matter Anastasia. He should have known better than to let you all out there with no protection, especially you,” he said pointing one of his long fingers at me.
    “In case you haven’t noticed, Cabel, I can take care of myself,” I huffed back at him.
    “What about the others?” He asked me sternly. He stood less than a foot away from me so I could not look away. “Emilie was so distraught when she made it back that she could barely tell us where you all were. Weldon was almost beaten to death and Arabella was holding on by a hair. You may be able to take care of yourself, Anastasia, but do not assume the same for everyone else.”
    With that, he walked out of the room, his heavy footsteps echoing on the staircase. I looked around at everyone in the room. Mari had joined us and was leaning against the counter looking at her brother. Emilie sat down at the table absently staring at the stone still in her hands. I hadn’t noticed before but the gash on her arm was gone, not even a scar to prove its existence. Yelson had his eyes closed with his hands on each side of his head.
    “Cabel is right. I wasn’t thinking straight. I should not have allowed us to go out there,” he said taking his hands away from his face to look at me.
    “No he is not. We have all been kept in this village for too long and needed to get out.”
    “That is no excuse Anastasia,” Mari said accusingly. “We all know how dangerous it is out there. That is why they keep us in the village lines. They are protecting us but you just had to go out didn’t you?”
    “Mari, she didn’t suggest we go out there.”
    “No,” Mari said to her brother. “But if it wasn’t for her, Weldon would never have suggested it.”
    “That’s not true.” Emilie in a small voice as she stood up from the chair and glared at her. “Weldon had been talking about going into the woods for months before Annie even came here. You can even ask him when he wakes up.”
    Mari stared angrily at Emilie as she came to my defense. Her dark blue eyes turned cold as she turned to look at me. The anger that was building up inside her threatened to burst at any moment but before the flood gates could burst open she walked out the room into the backyard.
    I let out a breath as the door closed behind her. Mari would never like me, or at least be in a room with me without getting angry.
    “Sorry about that,” Yelson