“I want you to miss the Recruits’ Trials,” she said. “If you are claimed by a dragon, you cannot ever go home. You understand that, don’t you?”
I nodded.
“Find an excuse to escape it. Fieran might not trust you afterward, but he won’t easily relinquish you to me, either. He’ll want to forgive your sins.”
“What happens after I miss the Trials? Will I burn? With the curse?”
“You’re mortal,” she said, as if I had forgotten. “The curse won’t trouble you.”
Either she was lying about that—happy to see me burn rather than help Fieran—or he was.
“And afterward, Fieran…”
“Fieran will either keep you with him—and we’ll be a step closer to unraveling his plans—or he will send you home, as you wish.”
“But my brother?—”
She interrupted. “If you destroy my son’s dreams, I will give you back your own.”
She seemed bored, dismissive. I nodded, taking a step backward, feeling a rise of warning.
I had to get out of here. “May I go? And take Fieran with me?”
“Gods, yes. I’ve no use for him.”
The next thing I knew, I was surrounded by Fae guards. Soon after that, Fieran and I were being marched out of the castle and down city streets. Their boots clattered around us, disrupting the still and the magic of the night.
I caught glimpses of Fieran’s shadowed face in the torchlight, but the guards were between us. He seemed dark and regal, rising above them even when they had him in chains.
The queen had spared us for now, but whatever mercy this was, it wasn’t meant to last.
Thirty-Four
Finally relinquished by the guards at the gates to the academy, Fieran strode inside as if he hadn’t been returned home like a naughty boy found stealing candy from a shop. I felt more embarrassed to follow him inside, but Fieran was unstoppably cocky.
He moved close to me, his voice low to keep it from carrying in the cavernous entryway. “Tell me everything you said to her.”
“Don’t you want to know what she said to me?”
He caught me in his arms, drawing me against his chest. I tried to push away from him, but his arms were unyielding. His wings unfurled from his sides, shimmering above me. A single beat of them, and we lifted skyward.
I clasped my arm around his neck, and he gripped my thigh, pulling my legs around him so I was anchored to his body. I gritted my teeth at the contact, at the friction of his hard torso between my thighs. I was trying to keep from plummeting to my death; that was all.
He landed us lightly on the top landing. He lowered me to the floor, but my body was still pressed against him, his leg parting my thighs. His warm palms lingered on my skin, waiting for me to get my balance.
I pushed away from him and strode into the common room. Reesrose to greet me, nosing my palm in greeting—or, more likely, searching for snacks. He licked my palm, drawn perhaps to the remnants of honey cake and human misery.
Fieran slung his belt over the back of a chair and drew his tunic off, wincing at the movement. I dared a look, dreading how his body affected me.
But black-and-blue marks spread across his torso, and the stab wound bled at his side. I’d assumed he’d been healed; he was the queen’s son, after all, even if she might kill him one day, but they’d let him bleed all the way through the city. “Gods! That looks terrible!”
“I’m touched—and frankly surprised—that you care.” He opened a cabinet and pulled out a bundle of medical supplies.
I was torn between wanting to catalog his wounds in case he needed more care and being annoyed by my own tendency to linger, staring at the hard planes of his body.
Anyway, he was right. I shouldn’t care. I should just let him bleed out.
“I need you to tell me every bit of your conversation with the queen,” he told me. “Don’t worry about offending me. I already know you’re not loyal to me.”
