He wasn’t careful enough. Deyvid looked away, his demeanor frosting over in an instant. “Rather than dragging her into a world filled with people who would kill her as soon as look at her? Yes,” he spat. “I do think that leaving her with my clan was preferable to that. It’s not as if the life I’m living is an easy one.”
“No, no, I understand,” Petur said, raising his hands innocently. “I’m not second-guessing you. I can’t say whether what you did as a parent was right or wrong. I only—I imagine it’s hard for you to be apart from her.”
“It is,” Deyvid admitted, thawing a bit. Petur breathed an internal sigh of relief. “I miss her terribly. It’s been five years, but—” He shook his head. “I can still perfectly recall the way she looked the night I left. She was sleeping beside her mother. I’d braided her hair that night, but it was already starting to come undone. There were all these little blonde tufts sticking up, and I was so tempted to smooth them down for her.” He rubbed his hands together absently. “I wanted to kiss her cheek, but I was afraid of waking her up. So I just … I just left.”
Triple gods, what a tale.“Well, that’s terrible,” Petur murmured. “And now here you are.”
“And here I am,” Deyvid agreed.
“Clearly, the gods have a sense of humor, to bring a runaway High Harrier and an itinerant prince together.”
“The will of the gods doesn’t concern me,” Deyvid said, finally lying down on his bedroll. “And I’m sure I don’t concern them. Face it, we’re not fate. We’re just—we met by chance. There’s nothing special about us, and when we part, it will be for good.”
“I don’t want it to be for good.”
Deyvid shrugged and closed his eyes. “You don’t always get what you want, astonishingly. Sleep well, Petur.”
His breathing evened out quickly, and he was asleep before Petur could formulate a suitably dramatic comeback. “Bastard,” he whispered, “showing me up like that.”
Petur wasn’t going to let it stand, of course. He would find a way to convince Deyvid to come back with him to Delomar if it was the last thing he did.
He wasn’t even sure why he felt so strongly about it, only that he’d never been as drawn to someone with such strengthand speed as he had with Deyvid. The man was wholly unique, deliciously frustrating, and it didn’t hurt that he was achingly sexy.
Petur ran through his best arguments over and over again as the night wore on. He could have been sleeping, probablyshouldhave been sleeping—there was a watch out, and he needed the rest—but he couldn’t make himself relax. He needed to find a way, some way, that would convince Deyvid to give coming with him to Delomar a chance. Perhaps if he—
Petur froze as every hair on his body seemed to rise at once. That was all the warning he got before absolute chaos descended on their camp.
“Up!” he roared, his voice shifting into its bestial range as he took his warrior form. Petur’s clothes shredded around him, and he ran for the edge of camp as the air around them began to glow. He didn’t know this spell, but if he could end the caster’s life before it exploded, or caught them on fire, or—
It didn’t do either of those things. Instead, the glowing pockets of air coalesced into four humanoid figures. They were rough-hewn, without facial features or individual fingers. Petur attacked the closest one with a snarl, then faltered as it evaporated in his grip.
“I don’t understand!” Rhys called out from where he was swiping his sword at one of them. “They’re not doing any damage! What’s the point?”
“Guard your blades!” Deyvid called out, but it was too late. Two of the figures had managed to snatch swords from where they’d been laid down by Petur’s people, and the other two grabbed whatever they could bring to hand. In one case it was a branch, in another the metal pot still hot on the fire. Then all four of them, in eerie synchronization, went after Deyvid.
Fuck. Whoever was in charge of this group of mages had finally honed in on the worst threat among them. Their magiccouldn’t touch Deyvid, but real metal blades could. Deyvid, of course, was already on his feet and parrying the attacks like they were nothing, but four against one wasn’t sustainable forever.
“Go get the mages!” he shouted at Petur. And Petur knew he should, it was the smart thing to do, and yet he couldn’t bear the thought of being away from Deyvid right now.
“Brannan,” he shouted instead, and his sergeant nodded and led the rest of their squad to fan out into the woods. Hopefully, it wasn’t too dangerous for them out there.
One of the attackers broke off and came for Petur with the branch. He wrenched it away with a snarl and ripped it in two, to make it a less-attractive bludgeon for the magical golem, then flung the pieces aside. The golem in front of him vanished, which made him feel satisfied for half a second before he realized what that meant.
Petur spun around and saw that the golem had rematerialized near Deyvid. Worse, it grabbed the sword that Petur had left by his bedroll and was swinging it at Deyvid’s back without him even being aware of it.
He didn’t even stop to think, just dove forward as fast as he could. The cold bite of steel into his unprotected back was hideous, but it was worth it to see the shock in Deyvid’s eyes as he spun toward the snarl of pain and realized what had happened.
“Petur!”
He whirled around and flattened his hands around the massive blade of his sword, then jerked it out of the golem’s grip. Blood poured from the wound on his back, but that didn’t matter. Nothing mattered right now except holding these magical monsters off until—
There was a distant scream, and every golem wavered for a moment until, as one, they vanished. Cheers went up from Petur’s people, but all he could focus on right now wasDeyvid and the relief and worry that warred in his face as he immediately came over and put Petur’s dark-furred arm over his shoulder.
“It’ll heal fast,” Petur slurred around his sharp teeth. All of his energy was being redirected toward healing now. After a few more seconds, he melted back into his human form as his legs gave out beneath him. Deyvid cursed under his breath as he helped lay him down on his stomach by the fire.
The next few minutes were focused chaos. Once Lise was back, Deyvid turned Petur over to her with an admonition to “guard this idiot” before slinking off into the night.
“I think he likes you,” she murmured to Petur as she sluiced water from her canteen over his back to wash off some of the blood. She hummed as she took in the extent of the slash. “It’s knitting back together quickly. Do you need something for the pain?”
