I never should’ve let down my armor. I woke this morning with a raging headache and memories of Neri touching me and then leaving me. Instead of taking advantage of the situation and of me, he’d been respectful and thoughtful, more words I would’veneverassigned to him before last night. And so I made my way down to Fia’s courtyards, awash in humiliation, awaiting sarcastic remarks and flirty gestures from a golden-eyed devil.
But he let me be. He let me say my goodbyes in peace. He didn’t make a single second awkward for me. And then Zahira said it was time to leave, and all I knew was that if I was going to sift anywhere, it would be in Neri’s arms.
And now I don’t know what to think about any of this.
Because he can’t be right.
I have to dig deep, but I find the barbed exterior I’ve been maintaining with him and slip into it like a second skin. “Don’t twist things into something they are not, wolf. Because that doesn’t create truth either.” I have his full attention, but his sharply perceptive gaze suddenly darts toward the main house. Still, I can’t stop rambling. I raise my voice over the increasing wind. “You should know that I’d had at leasttwobottles of wine when you knocked on my door last night, and that I ate very little dinner and absolutelynosupper, so all that alcohol was taken on an empty stomach. And I—”
He clamps his hand over my mouth and cocks his head like a dog. Oddly enough, his ears change before my eyes, the gentle curves elongating to wolfish points protruding from his wind-tousled hair.
He aims his ear toward the tor a second before dragging me the short distance to the rocks and pulling me down behind them.
I jerk free of his grip. “What in the—”
Again, he claps his hand over my mouth, blinking at me with dismay as thunder rolls through the clouds beyond him. “You talk a lot when you’re trying to lie, you know that? And loudly. Voices carry on the wind.” He presses a finger to his lips, telling me to be quiet before pointing toward Starworth Tor and dropping his other hand from the lower half of my face.
At first, I see nothing unusual. But then lightning cracks behind the low-hanging clouds, and all becomes clear.
My friends are hunkered down against the stone wall that leads to the beach, their backs pressed flat, their weapons drawn. The metal glints for a split second under the lightning’s brilliant flash.
It’s hard to see in the dull light once the bolt fractures and fades, but if I look closely, I can make out the figures of four men pacing the wall near the gardens that stretch between the main house and the lighthouse.
I open my mouth to say something, but Neri presses against my mind, halting me. He holds my gaze and touches my forehead, slipping his fingertips from my hairline to my temple.
He wants me to lower my construct.
Given the situation, I don’t hesitate.
“It could be Harmon and the boys,”I think, my fingers nervously working against the cool, rough rock I’m leaning against.
“It’s not,”he answers, and I gasp when I actually hear him.“I know their voices. It has to be the Watch.Rooke must not have been the only official Vexx corrupted, or perhaps the prince has more men here.”
“If they found out about us after we left, then they’re probably lying in wait for our return.”I think about the man who attacked my sister. Gavril had been his name. A sorcerer. There’s no telling what became of him. He could be here.
Neri arches a brow as his next thought whispers into my mind.“Only one way to find out.”
A breeze whirls close. Not an ocean breeze, but a silken gust I recognize intimately now.
I grab the wolf’s wrist.“You’re not going in there without me.”
I hope he can hear the firmness in my thoughts the way he would if I were speaking the words aloud.
He glances at my hand and chuckles.“Yes, I am.”
I tighten my fingers.“No, you’re not.”
In truth, I realize that I have no notion how sifting works, if he can choose to take me along or if he has no choice if I’m clinging to him.
That question is answered as another thunderclap sounds, because that cold breeze of his worms its way between us like a living thing, bringing frost and ice with it.
“Stay here until I come for you. Do you hear me?”Eyes locked with mine,Neri reaches over his broad shoulder, and his galatine sword rings through the morning, freed from its scabbard.
I stare at him with wide eyes, shaking my head, willing him not to leave me here where I can do nothing. But ultimately, I have no choice but to break our connection and squeeze my eyes against the sleet and wind suddenly whirling in the air.
When I open them again, the only thing that remains where Neri had been crouched beside me is a drift of snow and something I’ve never seen before.
A tendril of what looks like quicksilver, twisting and writhing in the sand.
