“I’m not saying they’re better than us. But of course they have powers…” I realized I shouldn’t have lumped him into myus. “They have powers we mortals don’t have.”
“Because they take your magic,” he said.
“Even without that. We can’t heal…” My fingers fidgeted with his cloak. It was too heavy for me, weighing down my shoulders. My muscles were beginning to ache from the tension. “What is there that matters besides being able to save the people we love?”
His gaze softened in a way that made my heart tilt, feeling more vulnerable than I could bear. “Is that what you want, Cara? Is there someone you’re trying to save?”
My need to protect my brother and sister felt like a living thing, something swelling in my chest until I could choke on it. I was afraid if I tried to tell him, I’d tip over into tears. “Will you help me?”
“Yes,” he said, without hesitation. “If that’s what you want…I’ll find a place for you. Close enough to my own home to keep an eye on you. To make sure they can’t mistreat you.” He said the words as if mistreatment were such a sure thing.
I bit my lower lip. I hadn’t thought beyond taking care of Tay and Lidi. Suddenly, the thought that I would be in danger going to serve in the houses of the Fae pressed down on me.
But just like I wasn’t afraid in the night forest, maybe I wouldn’t be afraid in the Fae cities if I could rely on Fieran.
If I could. I barely knew him.
“And,” he added, adjusting the cloak on my shoulders, his touch familiar as if we were old friends. “Then I’ll be close by so I can make sure you don’t forget what I said earlier. We live in a world where everyone is obsessed with magic, but it’s not magic that makes you special.”
“It better not be,” I said. “Because I don’t have any.”
“Lies,” he said, his smile seeming sharp in the moonlight. It gave me another jolt of fear that he saw right through me, but that sentiment wasmixed with something heady and intoxicating. “You might have lost part of yourself, but no one could take awayallof what makes you magical.”
No one had ever made me feel special before like he did.
And I’d never met anyone as special as Fieran.
Then he was leaning down, his perfectly shaped mouth in my line of sight. I raised my face toward his, and my palm found his chest, and it felt as if his heart were beating a little faster too.
When our lips were almost about to touch, we heard a shout in the distance.
Eight
“Everyone’s all right,” Fieran told me.
I’d jolted away from him, but his hands slid gently across my shoulders, his touch soothing.
How did he know? Was there something about being dragon shifters that made it not only possible for them to be so perfectly in sync with each other but also to know when the others were all right…and when they were not?
His fingers brushed my throat, and I felt my chin tilt, my body reacting to him in an undisguised, embarrassing way.
He didn’t seem to notice, though, intent on fastening the cloak. Purely business. I swallowed.
“I’m too slow wearing your cloak,” I said.
“Cara, we’re not running.” He sounded confident, as if the thought that dragon shifters would ever run away was ridiculous.
He took my hand, striding confidently through the woods, and I went with him.
We were climbing up, and my legs began to burn, though he didn’t seem to even notice our steady climb. He might as well have been strolling through the village, window-shopping, while my breath began to come in desperate, humiliating pants.
I gritted my teeth and forced my legs to keep moving.
The forest thinned until we reached a small clearing. When I looked back, I could see the village far beneath us, looking like a toy. Beneath was laid the unpredictable paths and the neat green and yellow of our fields and our little cottage. Only movement made the few figures discernible, distant and small as peg dolls.
I looked back up at the peak that I couldn’t quite see, but that I knew was close. If I kept walking, I could see what was over the mountains, as Lidi intended one day.
Fieran had paused with me, as if he knew I had to catch my breath. “Ready to go on?”
