“Then why risk it?”
He doesn’t answer me straight away, his gaze moving over me. I wonder what he’s seeing.
His captive? The girl who was going to kill him? Maybe both. Maybe neither.
“Because they are my people. And I will not leave them to rot.”
THIRTEEN
ALLERIA
Because they are my people.And I will not leave them to rot.
The words he said won’t leave me alone. I turn them over in my head, trying to fit them into everything I thought I knew about fae.
Animals don’t havepeople. Mindless beasts don’t go back for each other. Everything I’ve been taught says fae are dangerous, yes, but dangerous in the same way wolves are dangerous. Predators operating on instinct, not loyalty.
But he saidmy peoplethe way Brennan saysmy kingormy princess. It bothers me … a lot.
Each time we pass anyone, Cairn drops back into position behind me, head bowed, shoulders hunched, the glamoured collar dark against this throat. His performance is flawless, but I know what’s underneath it now.
The glamour shows something broken. A dull-eyed, defeated fae, with a collar eating into damaged skin. But I watched him climb out of that stream, with water sheeting off muscle and scar tissue. I’ve seen the way he holds himself when no one is watching—spine straight, shoulders loose, weight balanced onthe balls of his feet. Alert and ready.
He’s been different since the stream. More …present. The marks on his skin are darker, and when he flexes his fingers, silver flickers at his fingertips before he closes his fist and snuffs it out.
“You’re changing.” I don’t mean to say it out loud.
“Yes.”
“The skin color and antlers … they weren’t you. This is how you really look.”
“This?” A hand waves down his torso, and he gives a soft laugh. “No. This is what I look like after centuries of iron draining everything I am to dregs.”
I fall silent after that. It’s becoming too easy to forget that he’s the same thing who nearly killed me in the forest days ago.
I stop walking beside a crumbling stone wall, staring at it. It’s familiar. I remember it, because Nella pointed out the wildflowers growing between the gaps. Cairn takes three more steps before he realizes I’m not beside him. He turns and lifts an eyebrow.
“This is the road to the Dell.”
His expression doesn’t change.
“You’re going backnow? I thought you were going to wait until—” I bite my lip. Until what? Until he was strong enough to kill everyone there? Or until he could find a way to slip in and free his people?
He starts walking again without answering me. I want to ask what he's planning, what he thinks he can do alone against the entire hunting preserve. But I know it won’t get me anywhere.He won’t tell me a thing.
With a soft sigh, I jog to catch up to him. The road crests a low rise, and he stops at the top. Below us, the land spreads out in gentle folds, and in the distance, rising against the afternoon sky, a plume of smoke.
TheDell.
It’s right there. A mile away, maybe less. I can see the high fence, and beyond it the shape of the lodge itself.
“This is where I leave you.”
The words don’t make sense to me at first.
“What?”
He’s not looking at me. His attention is fixed on the distant smoke and the place that caged him.
