“We are trapped in a solabear den. It is night,” I said quickly, trying to assuage any worry or fear.
Veyka grunted, apparently unbothered by darkness. “How bad is my leg?”
“Worse than your head, I hope?”
She laughed softly into the darkness. I hated that I could not see her. But Ifeltthat sound, softening the jagged edges of my soul.
“It all hurts,” she admitted. “But it is nothing to what I’ve endured before.”
I heard the soft sound of her laying her head back against the wall of ice. It was the last sound I heard as my blood rushed in my own ears.
“Who?”
Something deeper than anger clawed at my insides. Parents told their children stories of my beast to keep them in their beds at night. Nothing that anyone had seen, on any battlefield, would compare to what I would do to the ones who had hurt my mate.
“Hmm?”
“Who hurt you?”
Veyka swallowed, the sound too loud in the small space. I was sitting very close to her. She could surely hear the sound of my blood pounding through my veins. Could she scent the rage as well?
“I killed Gorlois the day I injured you, in the cursed clearing across the lake from Avalon,” Veyka said. Her voice was so tired. The tension inside of me loosened a notch. “The other… my mother. Igraine.”
“The Dowager Queen.” All the possibilities flashing through my mind, none of them made sense.
Veyka sighed. “I do not want to talk about it. Not now.”
I wanted to demand—I was her mate. It was my duty to avenge the wrongs done to her. Whatever the state of things between us—love, almost love, maybe love, definite duty—I owed her that much at least.
“Arran.” Her voice broke. “Please.”
I would not be the one to break her. That pain in her voice… I recognized it. I did not need to know the details to understand the torture of a soul.
I could not see her. Probably would have failed at offering an expression of comfort, anyway. But I touched her leg—the uninjured one. Her fingers settled over mine.
We sat in silence for several heartbeats.
“The scabbards really do keep you from bleeding,” I finally said. Me, as well. Exactly as she’d explained.
Her voice sounded distant, distracted, as she said, “They were a gift from my brother.” There was more to that than she was saying. But I didn’t push that either. She exhaled, half laugh, half sigh. “If only they prevented injury of any kind.”
If only.
“Can you use your power?” I asked, though I already knew the answer. Few things could hinder fae power. There were the natural limits of each individual. The cost—manifested as pain, exhaustion, sleep, and so on. And then there was illness and injury. We healed so quickly, that the latter were rarely an issue. But Veyka had dislocated her knee, broken her leg in two places, and hit her head.
I knew her answer would be—
“No.”
I could just imagine her pouting out her lips. But I could not see them.
She was leaning back against the cave edge, legs out straight before her. I’d knelt at her side when I first shifted, but I settled myself next to her now. As soon as I stilled, Veyka’s head dropped down onto my shoulder.
“I feel… naked,” she said quietly.
Fuck.
My cock thickened instantly, my beast snarling awake. Veyka was still holding my hand. I tried to pull it away, on instinct, to stop myself from feasting on my injured mate. But she held tight. I did not fight her.
