She’d known I had the canteens with me, had watched me drink countless times, but that independent streak had prevented her from asking for water.
Stubborn fucking woman.
I would need to check in with her regularly, clearly. To ask andoffer to meet her needs so that she was not forced toask. I noted it in my mind as something that I’d likely do for the rest of our lives. Having someone to care for and tend to was new territory for me, and I’d have to learn as I went.
“Like seeing the sun,” she agreed, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand when she finally finished drinking. “For me at least. Most of the others alternated going to the surface to tend to the gardens that we’d hidden away on a mountaintop or going out to set traps or go hunting. But I had to stay within the wards Imelda placed on the tunnels to keep Mab from sensing me. We couldn’t risk it even when the Veil was between us. We weren’t sure how much she could sense with it in place.”
She stroked her hands through Thunder’s mane absently, gently tugging out any tangles she found in a way that he didn’t seem to mind. She shifted as if her ass had started to hurt, and it occurred to me that it may have been her first time on horseback.
If she’d never left the tunnels, had she ever even been near a horse before? Had she ever been near any animals, aside from the dead ones hunters would have brought back?
A little bit of understanding bled into my knowledge of her stubbornness. “So you never left those tunnels,” I said, my voice gentling as I shifted the reins into one hand and rested my other palm on her thigh—hoping she could feel it for the comfort I intended it to be and didn’t read into it as something I didn’t intend. She’d shared a bit about what life was like for women on the surface, but said little about what her rights as a woman might have been within the rebellion.
My jaw clenched at the thought of her being forced into a relationship with someone else—let alone someone she did not want for herself.
“What did you do with your time all these years?” I asked, wanting to get to know her. I knew she was selfless, staying hidden to avoid bringing Mab’s forces down on her entire community. I knew she was loyal to her friends above all else. But I knew very little about what she wanted forherselfand a part of me wondered if she’d ever even been given the opportunity to think about that.
“Imelda trained me as her apprentice in each of my lifetimes,” she said, a wistful smile gracing her face. “I had human parents who lived there with us, and they did love me. But there was always a little bit of distance between us because they knew that I was different than the rest of them. Imelda made sure I always felt like I belonged…” She trailed off, and I barely refrained from flinching.
“Because you belonged with her,” I said, suddenly understanding the attachment between the two women. Imelda may not have been her mother, but she’d been her guardian in every way that mattered.
She’d been her home.
Fuck.
Fallon nodded. “She taught me all about the different plants that the others brought back from the gardens and showed me how to preserve them for healing purposes. We stored them in what she called the apothecary, but it was really just this random alcove at the end of one of the tunnels that only a few of us knew about. She trained another girl too, because she knew there would come a time when she and I left the tunnels and someone needed to know how to use the herbs to heal without her.”
“She trained you as a healer,” I said, admiration lacing my tone. Few knew much about my upbringing prior to when I’d come to live with Rheaghan and Mab, but it sounded as if Fallon’s knowledge was the human equivalent of what my mother had been gifted with as a Goddess. Levana was the Goddess of Witchcraft and Magic, and the legend stated that the witches had been one of her creations—that they worshiped her within their covens even still. She was far more their mother than she had ever been mine.
I possessed little of her magic within me, only successfully channeling it when I combined my father’s magic with hers. They’d both been Gods, and unlike Caldris, I hadn’t been blessed with enough magic to call myself a second-generation God.
“There must have been a lot of sick and injured in order for that to fill your days,” I observed, feeling uncomfortable with the similarities that seemed to hit too close to home. We both had the same heritage in a way, Fallon through experience and me through blood, but neither of us alone had the magic it took to truly harvest such skills.
Living on the fringes of something great, without ever really being able to grasp it.
“It didn’t take all my time,” Fallon said, a wistful sort of smile transforming her face as her cheeks flushed with pink. She studiously kept her gaze forward, avoiding the stare that I kept on the back of her head—waiting for her to look at me. “I spent a lot of time writing in notebooks that Imelda would bring me after a team returned from a supply run. Dreaming of far-off lands and places that I would never get to see. The people of the rebellion were close, because we were so confined together. There was alwaysentertainment that came in companionship, and that was highly encouraged in our community—the more partners the better, because there were fewer women than men. That was just for fun, though. I wasn’t one of the women who did that as a day job, so to speak.”
“Stop talking,” I snapped, realizing that she was rambling. I knew it was probably her discomfort, but I couldn’t decide what had provoked her to tell me about her history. I couldn’t even decide if she was serious or if it was a cruel prank to push me away.
I had no business feeling possessive because of her past partners. It wasn’t as if I’d been celibate, for fuck’s sake.
“Are you a virgin, then?” she asked, turning to look at me with a smirk that made it clear that flush hadn’t been out of embarrassment at all. She wastryingto get under my skin, the little helfire. “Or are there plenty of previous partners that I’ll have the pleasure of bumping into once we reach the Summer Court?”
“Ah, well, I—” I cut off, clearing my throat. “I hadn’t thought that far ahead, but none of my previous partners were serious. They won’t be an issue for you.”
“Good. I’m not the jealous type. In fact, I think you’ll find I’m quite open to sharing, but I do have a problem when others get possessive over something that doesn’t belong to them either—”
“There will be no sharing, Sunfire. You’re the only woman I need, and I would like for that to be reciprocated,” I said, taking a deep breath so that I didn’t show my entire ass and declare ownership of Fallon. While she hadn’t outright told me her dreams, I was getting to know them slowly through the things she didn’t say and the hints of what else was there.
“That sounded like it hurt,” she said, snorting out a laugh that shook her entire chest.
“Do I get credit for trying?” I asked, grinning at her as I leaned forward and touched my forehead to hers. Her hazel eyes flashed with warmth, the cool tones seeming to burn as she sucked back a breath but didn’t turn away. Her mouth was so close to mine that I could almost taste her, and I waited to see if she would close the gap between us.
She let her eyes drift closed instead, her words tumbling out as if she couldn’t control them. She needed something to sever the moment, to pull her back from the desire that pulsed between us like something I could reach out and grasp in my hand. “I want to see the world,” she said, making everything in me tense. “I don’t want anything to tie me to one place. When I dreamed of far-off lands, itwas with the hope that one day I would be able to start walking and never stop. Imelda gave me the skills I needed to survive that if I ever did it. You want monogamy, and I can’t give that to you unless Istay. I don’t want to be a prisoner anymore, Etan. I want to roam beneath the stars and know what it’s like to be free and go where I want, when I want—”
I silenced her, leaning forward to touch my mouth to hers. The vulnerable words should have cautioned me away, a conflict rising between what the two of us needed. After our visit to the baths in a few days time, Fallon and I would be crowned King and Queen of the Summer Court. She would need to be present at my side in order for us to rule, and all she wanted was to leave.
But the admission was the first piece of vulnerability Fallon had offered me; it felt like a truce between us, and I had to have faith that we would be able to compromise. That we could see the worldtogetherand return home to the court that needed us when our business was finished.
