“What are you talking about? I was here, putting out the warehouse fire, just like you.” His voice was all coy innocence, but she could hear the triumph underlying it as he surveyed the smoking wreckage around them. He shook his head, clucking his tongue. “What a shame. What a waste.”
All this destruction around them, his earnest efforts alongside the rest of the townspeople had just been a distraction. Just analibi. He hated her so much, he was willing to threaten the livelihood of the whole village to get his empty revenge.
He turned his attention to the harbor, showing her his back. He thought he’d won, but he still didn’t have anything he wanted.
He wanted her regretful, but he’d only proved why she’d made the right decision. He wanted her quiet and on her knees, and she wouldn’t give him that, either.
So she stood. And shescreamed.
Chapter 12
A Promise Kept
Evrard
The Sixth Watch launched at nightwake, flying in formation toward Meravenna. When Evrard got the signal from Brandt, he peeled off from his swarm.
His heart ticked urgently as he beat his wings toward the sea, working against the wind. Would Maggie accept his bite, or would she need convincing? He wasn’t sure he had the words to explain how it would connect them.
He practiced his speech as he flew, making his mouth form the human words so he could deliver it when he reached her.You are my human. My mate. I must bite.
He sounded like a goblin straight from the mines. She deserved something prettier.
When he hit the coastline, he turned to follow it, knowing it was only minutes until he saw her again. If he could speak to her in his tongue, he’d tell her of her beauty. How she woke him to the beauty of everything he took for granted. How she gave him a reason to survive. How she was his only family.
He caught the scent of smoke on the wind before he saw the flames in the harbor that outshone the village lanterns. Before he heard the screams that tore through the night. That tore through his heart because they wereherscreams.
Heedless of anything else, he dove for the sound. He spotted her at the end of a long pier, next to the smoking remains of a wooden building. Tears streaked through the charcoal smudges on her face as she wailed at the sea.
Whoever hurt her would pay.
Her eyes went wide when she caught sight of him swooping silently toward her. And then she was in his arms, and he lifted her up, desperate to get her away from whatever was causing her harm.
“Evrard,” she gasped, clinging to him as he wheeled above the village at a safe altitude. Her hair came loose and streamed like a flag in the wind. “What are you doing here?”
“Came for you,” he said gruffly. He held her close, burying his face in her hair so he could breathe in her familiar scent beneath the layer of ash and tears. “For my Maggie.”
She burst into noisy sobs. He should never have left. If he’d stayed, he could have protected her from whatever had happened. Dragons swallow the goblin hordes, this was more important.
“Hurt?” he asked, aching all over to stop her sadness. “Fire burned you?”
“No.” Her body jolted with the effort of suppressing her sobs. “Not me. My supplies. My ship. He burned everything to get back at me. There was nothing I could do to stop it. It’s all just…gone.” Another cry tore out of her.
Now Evrard was burning. “Who did this?”
“Kaspar,” she gasped out. “The man you chased away that night. The one holding my kitten. He wanted to marry me, and I refused him. This was his revenge.”
His lip curled, remembering how the cowardly human had run away, soiling himself. “I’ll kill him.”
“Don’t.” She turned her face into his chest, muffling her voice. “It won’t fix anything. I still won’t have theWolfhunter. I won’t have anything.”
“Have kitten. Have me,” he insisted, scanning for a place to leave her while he went to strangle this Kaspar. It would go against every guardian instinct in him to hurt a human. But his loyalty was no longer to humankind. It was to Maggie alone. If that made him a traitor, so be it.
He spotted a pair of sea cliffs that jutted out into the water, bracketing an isolated, sandy beach. A rocky break created a calm little cove and made the beach unreachable by any means but the air. She would be safe there until he returned. His heels sank into the sand as he set her down, and he had to use his tail to regain his balance.
He didn’t want to let go of her yet, but he couldn’t give Kaspar the chance to find a good hiding place. “Stay here,” he rumbled. He nosed affectionately against her neck before pulling back, a purr rising in his chest.
She refused to let go of him. “Take me with you,” she begged.
