The raphon rider from his dreams.
14
She was here.
Here!
And...
She was withArawn.
Kinlear did not miss the way his brother stepped closer to her as he approached. As if, already, Arawn had laid some sort of claim.
Impossible,he thought.
But his heart was in his throat.
He felt sick, dizzy with panic as he cast a glance at her.
She washis.
For how could she be anything but?
How could heeverdoubt the connection they’d shared on the back of the raphon? How could heeverignore how, in his dreams, she’d filled the gaping hole in his chest where his heart should have been—but it had been missing ever since Soraya left.
He would not be alone anymore, left to face the shadows in himself.
His raphon rider washere.
And...oh gods...he was pretty sure she hated him.
He could tell from the second she laid eyes on him, how she studied him with her strangely haunting eyes. And here he was, standing in the snow with his damned shirt half unbuttoned. With his cane and his vial and his differences. Him, amongst three Sacred warriors.
He wasn’t a warrior.
He was the farthest thing from it, and suddenly he felt more self-conscious than he ever had before. He felt smaller than the snowflakes that danced between them. He was a speck and she was...
Glaring?
At him.
Yes, she was glaring, her eyes roving over him as her lip quirked in what he could have sworn was a snarl. Like she was ticking off all the boxes that she didn’t like.
Don’t say something stupid,Kinlear told himself, brows raising as he pretended to notice her for the first time.
“ARavenminder,” he said, unable to stop the words that left his lips as he looked her up and down. He stood a bit taller, as if that would make any difference. “How very...charming.”
His blood went cold at his own words.
Pompous ass,he thought. He wanted to scream at himself.What in the gods’ name are you doing?!
He cleared his throat. “Spent a bit of time with the omens, have you?”
He hadn’t meant it as a slight.
But she certainly took it as one.
“If by omens, you meanravens,then yes,” she said. “In some ways, the messenger birds are just as important as the war eagles.”
