She makes a noise of interest and then turns her attention to me.
I stand straighter as she approaches. I make sure I have a steady grip on the reins when Jack shifts his weight next to me. My horse doesn’t like the shifterfae, and I can’t say I blame him. In fact, he is an excellent judge of character.
“What about you, human?” She looks down at me. “You’re such a small thing to be out here in the wastes. Your friend over there,” she looks over at Sebastian, “called you Isla. A female matching your description is wanted for helping the Shadowfae King escape. Are you a performer? Are youthatIsla? The one with a hefty bounty on her head?”
I lift my chin. “We’re just travelers. Nothing more.”
“Travelers, you say?” She smiles like she doesn’t believe it for a moment. “Traveling to where, exactly? Because there is nothing in this direction but more mud and misery.” She smiles wider. “I think you’re lying to me. I don’t like liars much.”
She reaches up. Her hand closes around my throat, and her gaze turns cold.
The grip is iron. Her fingers are long and strong, and they press into the sides of my neck, cutting off my air supply. My air thins. My vision narrows at the edges.
But I don’t flinch. I don’t grab at her wrist. I don’t look away.
I hold her gaze with everything I have. My mother didn’t raise me to cower. We come from good stock. My great-grandfather was an important male. I know that my mother would have died with her head held high. I will do the same.
I will not give this woman the satisfaction.
“Leave her alone.” Sebastian’s voice comes from behind the female. Low and hard and vibrating with something dangerous.
I flick my gaze past the female’s shoulder. Sebastian’s hands are gripping Nox’s reins tightly, and the shadows are back. Dark wisps bleeding from his fingers, curling around his knuckles like living things. His eyes blaze with such anger that I am momentarily afraid.
The female eases her grip on my throat just enough for me to pull in a deep breath.
“I’m the singer,” I choke out. “I’m Isla,” I add, pulling in small breaths in ragged pants.
The female studies me. Her thumb strokes the hollow of my throat, which is still constricted, although not as badly as before.
Then she lets go.
I suck in air. My throat burns. I keep my spine straight and my hands still.
The female turns back to Sebastian.
This time, there’s something different in her expression. A sharpness that wasn’t there before. She steps up to Sebastian, and he holds his ground.
Her fingernails elongate. They grow from her fingertips with a soft clicking sound, extending into dark, curved talons, each one as long as my index finger and razor-edged. She grabs the front of Sebastian’s tunic and slices downward in a single, savage motion.
The fabric falls open, baring the eclipse marking.
The female stares at it. Her lips part. The look on her face isn’t surprise. It’s hunger. The kind that has nothing to do with food and everything to do with power.
“The Drakar will be very happy indeed.” She is smiling in a way that is feral.
Sebastian goes rigid, the blood draining from his face. The tendons on the side of his neck stand taut.
“The Drakar?” His voice is a low rasp. “Has the Drakar been found? Was he ever lost to begin with?”
The female turns back to him. Amusement dancing in her eyes.
“I don’t divulge information to shadowfae, let alone the king,” she says.
“You’ll each ride a thornback,” the male speaks for the first time. He jerks his chin toward the creatures behind the formation.
I look at the thornbacks. Up close, they’re even more terrifying. Each one is the size of two carts stacked on top of the other, but wider, and covered in a shell of bone and thorn. Their small, dark eyes peer out from beneath ridges of thick armor that could be made from zuuuk steel.
“We will ride together.” He clasps my hand. “It is all I ask of you.”
