“She’s a fucking ghost,” Harald observed grimly.
Vetr scowled at him.
A ghost.Fitting.
I tried to speak again, my throat working as I got out the words, “You found me.”
“I never lost you.”
I blinked tired, gritty eyes.I never lost you.But that couldn’t be right. Fighting for my life in that camp, facing down Stig and his army, the piske tearing me open, leaving me this broken, hollowedout body … I had been lost. Lost and alone.
Confused, I moistened dry lips. “What do you mean?”
He gingerly gathered my hair, easing the sticky, tangled mass away from my shoulder to examine my back with a hiss of sympathy. “We followed you.”
My eyes opened wider, taking in first him and then looking beyond to the solemn faces of Arran and Harald, seeking confirmation. “What are you saying? You followed me … You’ve been out here this whole time?” While I was being tortured …
He nodded.
A winding, poison-spewing serpent rose inside me. “And you never tried to do anything? You never felt compelled to help me?” I demanded. He was a shader. Arran was a hypnos. Harald an onyx.The three of them were beyond formidable. They were powerful. Combined, they could do anything. They could have used their talents to help me, to spare methis.
When I was taken in Porthavn, I told myself they’d let me go and tossed me to my fate. I told myself that the discovery of who I was had ruined everything, ruinedmein their eyes. Trust was lost, and I had accepted that.
I’d given up hope that they would follow me. Certainly I hadnotconsidered they wouldcareenough to follow me andnothelp me. What the fuck was that about? That was a whole level of cruelty I did not think them capable of committing.
“Did you hear the crack of the whip? Thepiske? Six times on me?” I demanded, my voice far stronger than I felt. “Did you hear my screams?”
Vetr didn’t say anything for a long moment, simply gazing at me with those silver eyes, his brother’s eyes. His brother who, almost from the start, had made me feel safe. Protected me when I was not owed that. Same eyes. Different hearts.This onein front of me, his hands holding me like he cared, like I was something fragile to be defended, had no heart. He’d left me to die. If I hadn’t gotten myself out of there, that would have been my fate.
Finally, he nodded grimly, acknowledging that yes, he had heard my screams.
I inhaled sharply and tilted my head toward my back. “See what they did to me?”
“We had to know,” he cut in.
I went rigid, stiffening even though it only made the pain worse.
“We had to know,” he repeated.
“Had to know what?” I shook my head wildly, the motion making me nauseated.
“We had to know what you would do in that camp. What you would do when the enemy had you.”
I stared at him, slow comprehension creeping through me. “You thought I would betray you.”
His expression was implacable as stone. “I did not know.”
“You didn’t know but you wanted to find out. You needed that final confirmation that I was not good enough to be one of you,” I finished bitterly. “After a year—”
“No,” he said flatly. “You are one of us. Birth decided that. You are a dragon.” He paused a beat. “I had to know if you could be trusted to do the right thing.”
“Because I have beenlackingfrom the moment you found me.” I laughed harshly, the action shuddering my wrecked body. The sound abruptly twisted into something hoarse and rough. Suddenly my knees buckled.
He caught me as though I weighed nothing at all, his hands splayed wide on my arms, each finger singeing me as he kept me from falling to the ground. “You stupid fool,” he muttered, his lips moving against my hair, his scolding voice as excruciating as my flayed-open back. “Why did you let them take you into that camp? Why did you not smite them when you were en route?”
He’d been out there watching me for three days. Three days. It was the sticking point I could not overcome.Hecould have snatched me at any time—shaded the three soldiers with ease so that they did not remember the encounter. Rescued me before I even had to come face-to-face with Stig.
Leave no witnesses.
