The fae soften.
The excitement fades, and they disperse.
But I don’t move, not with the general’s gaze running me over like a grater scraping down my flesh, and not with her gaze flicking to Samick every other heartbeat.
But after the world’s longest moment, she says nothing, she just turns her back on us and stalks to the head of the camp.
It’s only then that Samick moves for us.
His boots flatten on the grass, frosting under his steps, and that same frost of ice flexes in his grip as he sheaths his sword.
Ice-white eyes cut into me. “I told you,” he says, glacier, “not to run.”
The look I give him is stupid before my face crumples. A disbelieving huff jolts me.
He heavily fucking implied not to run fromhim. He said not a damn thing about not running from a maniacal fae returned from stray life, and suddenly all about the end of my existence.
That stroke of tension down his jaw turns to me, and he looks to where Rust disappeared into the dark. Then, with a slow breath, he takes the tether Arwyn passes to him.
Samick ties the loose end of the rope back to his belt before tugging it once—
I get to my feet.
My stare burns under my lashes, as violent as the storm rolling around my insides.
But what other option do I have other than to follow him back to the campfire?
The ruby lights dance over the carved faces of angels and forgotten names etched in stone. The graveyard smells of dust, moss, and firewood.
Somewhere beyond the camp, something screeches—metal or a bird, I can’t tell, and just as I focus on it, it’s gone.
TWENTY-TWO
Two things have stuck to me in the hours since.
Samick, and that crimson stare.
The warriors have bunched off to campfires all around the foggy cemetery, and some have made their disinterest in the returning warriors pretty clear.
One of them is Samick.
Like so many others around camp, he has taken to his own campfire, joined by Arwyn and Mika and Shark. Other fires, wedged between headstones and tucked onto packed-dirt paths, are littered with fae warriors who apparently couldn’t give less of a shit about the strays.
The revelry at the campfire closest to the mausoleum is where the strays are celebrated.
Wine bottles are passed from hand to hand, grins are stained purple, and the strays—minus Arwyn—are basically holding court down there.
But every other moment, that fucking fae looks at me, seething at the protection around me, Samick and Arwyn, maybe Mika and Shark, too.
He’s stewing in it too, getting his ass handed to him. He must’ve felt close.
Another second, and he would’ve made it to me before Arwyn blocked him—because Samick turned his fucking back on the fight.
That simmers in me.
It’s a storm brewing, swaying side to side, and I throw my dark glare over at the cold one.
So maybe to say he hasn’t left my side is a bit of an exaggeration. Really, he hasn’t left me with anyone else since the fight, but he has wandered to the headstone, as far as the tether allows, like he can create some space now that Arwyn is back—even if Rust is a lingering threat.
