She would call him out on it. That’s just who she was. She wouldn’t care that Raine felt like this because he’d fallen for someone else—someone who wasn’t her. Solana wouldn’t stand for how he’d treated Frelina.
Neither would he, a few centuries ago. He might have always had a weak spot for beautiful females, but he’d always treated them well. Frelina, on the other hand? The one person who’d been able to stand him. Who’d stuck by his side as he grumbled and drank and talked so much shit he’d almost believed it himself…
He’d not done right by her. And now he was pretty damn sure it was too late.
Maybe if you get your shit together and become her friend, you can salvage some of it.
Raine huffed as the image of Solana waving a hand in his face, her small body radiating power and authority even as he towered over her, filled his mind, and for the fucking millionth time, his hand brushed his pocket for the flask that used to live there. But he came up empty. As he always would from now on, because he was done fleeing.
If Elessia and Frelina, Kerym and Merrick and Iviry and Loche, could face this world and the horrors it threw their way… then so could fucking he. He might be a bastard, but he wasn’t a fucking coward.
As Raine walked the final steps to the circle where a mooring rope had been tied to seal off the training ring, tension coiled even tighter around him, the feeling of it in the air pounding as harshly as the sails did when they switched directions. Raine lifted his eyes, letting them sweep around the people gathered there.
In almost every face, eyes were slitted and lips pursed, and every person’s hands twitched toward swords and daggers and throwing stars and whatever else these people had armed themselves with. The breaths rushing around him were short—sharp inhales and exhales, betraying how coiled muscles restricted air—how pulses raced through seemingly relaxed limbs.
Fuck, if war between these people didn’t break out today, it would be a damn miracle.
Raine had seen it before. Many times.
Even within Fae, there were different groups. And trying to force companies of soldiers to collaborate too quickly without the trust needed to stand together against an enemy? It was dangerous. That’s what it was.
He readied himself as he watched Loche duck under the rope with Iviry swiftly following, and when their guards didn’t immediately shadow them, Raine groundhis teeth and shoved himself through a group of Fae to enter the ring as well.
“You need to be fucking careful,” he hissed through his teeth, not bothering with any pleasantries as he reached the two leaders. “People are scared out here. Scared and worried and… I swear they are out for blood. They don’t know who to blame for how they’re feeling, and the easiest ones to target? You two!”
Raine shot a dark look at the guards who were finally making their way under the rope, then grabbed one of the Fae and one of Loche’s masked men by their collars and continued his whisper-shouted tirade. “You don’t leave them out of your sight. These are your leaders, soldiers. Treat them like it. Treat them like danger lurks at every corner, because it fucking does.”
“Raine,” Loche warned, his tone too fucking cool for the pressure building around them.
“Regent,” Raine shot back, his gaze flying out across the circle of people around them—the circle that had begun closing in, murmurs and sharp exchanges rising as people shoved each other, the space getting even more limited.
“What are you thinking?” Raine directed the question to Iviry, who’d motioned for one of her guards. “This is a death wish! You fucking know better, Iviry.”
The redhead gave him a lethal smile, although he knew her well enough to catch the glimmer of worry in her blue eyes. “We don’t have a choice, mind-bender. It’s just getting worse. We need to show them that we stand together.”
He was about to scoff that the five feet between them didn’t exactly scream unity when the most beautiful laughter split the air, and Raine’s jaw dropped as Frelinawas lifted into the ring by another of Iviry’s massive guards.
A blond Fae male with a too-fucking-wide smile for what was going on, and…
Why did he keep throwing that toothy grin Frelina’s way?
Raine clenched his hands into fists. “What is she doing here?”
Frelina wasn’t a fighter. Like her sister, she didn’t want to harm anyone. But here she was with a fucking sword hanging over her back like some kind of warrior princess.
A sexy warrior princess whom he couldn’t stop staring at.
“She’s in our council,” Iviry said as Frelina laughed again at something the guard said. “She wanted to help today, and since we need every person we can spare…”
Iviry is your leader.
Iviry is your leader.
He had to repeat the words to himself not to openly challenge her.
This was no place for a damn five-foot-six half-Fae with innocent eyes and hair that curled so beautifully where it cut off at her slender neck.
“Are we training today or what?” Frelina called out, and Raine swore the air stilled for a moment.
