Second Chance for the Barren Luna (Talia and Jason) novel Chapter 316

Jason’s POV

I reached the bathroom in a suite three corridors away from the dining hall before the first wave hit. My hands shook as I dropped to my knees in front of the toilet, breath ragged, and threw up. I kept vomiting for the next ten minutes, panic rising with each convulsion. Cold sweat soaked through my shirt before the second wave hit; my heart hammered in my chest.

Mushrooms.

She had fed me mushrooms, and like a fool, I let her. By the time I realized what was going on, my throat had started to tighten, and my skin had already started to itch. I couldn’t let her see me react like that, so I fled before she noticed.

Now, slumped against the cold bathroom wall, heart pounding, shame burning behind my eyelids, I tried to slow my breathing.

‘She knows. She did this on purpose,’ my wolf barked. ‘She tried to kill us!’

Maybe. The allergy was not a secret she had found out by accident. It was a confession I had made to her in private, and she had carried it carefully for as long as we were together. Remembering that trust made my heart ache. For a moment, beneath the anger and humiliation, I almost missed the way she used to look at me when she tried to keep me safe.

‘She used our feelings against us. She tried to kill us,’ my wolf repeated.

‘But she didn’t,’ I said.

Unfortunately for Talia, my food allergy hadn't killed me. My father had spent years forcing mushrooms into my food when I was a boy. He called it forcing the allergy out of me. It nearly killed me more than once. I hated him for it then, and for a long time after. Now, sitting in this bathroom with my throat tight but not closing, the irony was not lost on me. His torture had saved my life. Once again, the old man was protecting me in his own twisted way.

‘Your plan is failing,’ my wolf repeated, pulling me out of my thoughts. ‘We should just give her to the Rogue King.’

‘Or Nolan has poor taste in cuisine,’ I countered. ‘The Rogue King said the spell would make sure it cloaked everything. There is no way for her to see through it. Talia would not have ordered the dish to test me because there is no test to run.’

‘You don’t know that,’ my wolf growled. ‘You don’t think that it is too much of a coincidence that Nolan’s favorite dish had mushrooms in it?’

‘She thinks I’m Nolan. She was being affectionate.’

‘Once again, you refuse to believe the reason!’

‘I am keeping the possibility open. There is a difference,’ I argued.

I made myself replay the meal. I thought about how she smiled and how she talked about spending more time together. All of her reactions had been normal. My answers to her questions were perfect, but something gave me pause.

‘Her responses were too accepting,’ my wolf said, which was what I was thinking. ‘She went from upset to calm too fast. She stopped pushing after the scent question. That is not Talia.’

My wolf had a point. When things didn’t make sense, Talia was not the type to let it go until she figured it out.

I opened the mind-link to the Rogue King. I could feel his irritation almost immediately.

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