The crowd was too thick to see the face of everyone who came to hear the fae queen’s announcement. Besides, most of my attention between the Veil and the court was taken up trying not to get myself killed or trampled.
But I heard his voice.
In the tunnel, when people started losing their shit and running their dumb asses into the murderous walls, I heard Callum’s voice.
And now that the crowd is thinning, now that we’re in retreat, I can’t help but look.
I shouldn’t look.
I shouldn’t care at all whether the demon came here.
There’s no reason in any of the thirteen realms I should let myself be distracted searching for him. It makes no sense that hearing his voice made that ache behind my chest kick up, made me glad he was the one settling the chaos rather than one of the bower’s unfortunate victims.
It’s just basic decency. Being glad an acquaintance didn’t meet an untimely death is just basic decency. Good manners, really. Not something that means anything.
Damn me though, because when I finally make it out of the thicket and spot the head of a familiar ogre standing tall above the crowd, I can’t help but turn my shoulders in that direction, stand on my tiptoes and look.
A few seconds later, I spot the demon, and my own cursed heart leaps into my throat.
I can see more of him here, in the light of… well, I wouldn’t exactly call thisday, but the rusty sky and blood-colored sun give off enough light to get a good look at him.
He’s just as handsome as I remember.
Just as rugged, with his long hair and his beard and the scuffed leather armor he’s wearing over muscles and muscles and muscles.
He looks just as irritated as he did the last time he was talking to Pytri, attempting to brush the ogre off before being stopped by a big, green hand on his shoulder.
As long as he’s occupied, I should probably take that as my cue to leave.
Even if turning and starting back up the path feels… terrible. Wrong, so wrong, like half of me is being wrenched back to where Pytri is no doubt making some compelling case for Callum to work with him, like he was trying to do back in the Middle.
It’s not far from the queen’s bower court back to the Veil, and I head in that direction, invisibility charm still firmly in place, eyes forward and not looking back to see if Callum made it out okay.
My mind, though, isn’t so cooperative.
I can’t stop thinking about how he reined-in the situation back in the tunnel. Stopped what could have been a very, very bad time for most of the idiots who were letting their fear get the best of them. Maybe even a bad time for me, when the hunters around me started to panic, too.
It was kind of hot.
I shouldn’t be thinking that.
IknowI shouldn’t be thinking that, but there was something about the graveled roar of his deep voice, the way he stepped up and prevented something even worse from happening, that did something for me.
Not that I’m still thinking about it.
Not even a little bit.
Right now, all I’m thinking about is getting back to the damned Veil so I can regroup and start planning how I want totackle this thing, start asking about Faerie, learn anything I can to give me some idea of what—
“Witch.”
My entire body goes rigid under the invisibility spell.
“Don’t run.”
I whirl around, and he’s right there.
This is familiar.
