“Don’t say it. It’s still not your fault.”
She gave me an almost watery smile, but nodded. “You can hide in Hamor, or among the Second Line. I know a place, if you want to just go underground until this is done.”
I tilted my head at her. “Are they the only options?”
Pink tinged her cheeks. “You have a place with us, if that’s what you’d like.”
Vylan appeared, her now-dry clothes neatly folded in his hands, saving me from answering. “We should go. Hayle forgets that not all of us can run through the Mistwoods on four feet.”
I blinked at Vylan. “What?”
“Vox, is nothing sacred to you?” Taeme teased with a grin, like Vox hadn’t dropped a huge secret of the Third Line.
Vox lifted a brow. “Hayle can turn into a Spryrix.”
I blinked at him some more. “Excuseme?”
Avalon pulled off Taeme’s shirt and passed it back to him. “You think you’re surprised? You should try being nipple to nose with a giant lion thing, naked, after sex.”
Taeme cupped her cheeks, peppering her with kisses. “Aw, Avie. Don’t get yourself all mad about that again. You know how sorry I am that I lied by omission.”
There was a backstory there, but my brain was stuck on the Spryrix. That this man in front of me could turn into one of the most vicious of mythical beasts. I couldn’t see it, but I knew the Third Line had their secrets. I just hadn’t assumed it was this.
With that casually dropped revelation, we continued the trek to Hamor. Taeme picked Avalon up, carrying her on steady feet as he still cooed his apologies about whatever fuck-up she was holding against him, and soon enough, she was giggling softly between kisses.
I moved to the back of the group as we walked down the mountain, my eyes sifting through the woods for threats. I thought hard about what I wanted to do at the end of this. Hamor was the most comfortable; I knew Viktor and had visited Hamor before. However, I’d hate to bring the eye of Feodore Vylan their way.
Though perhaps the fact that one of the Heirs to the Third Line was actively trying to overthrow him might have brought the Third Line into his evil sights anyway.
I could do some good in Hamor. But if I was honest with myself, my gut was urging me to watch the backs of this ragtag bunch. They were powerful, but inexperienced. Sure, they could probably all fight, but could they hunt? Did they think of the long hunt the way someone from the Eighth Line could?
I’d be on the outside, but would I be able to rest easier knowing they weren’t out here, stumbling around in the dark? I felt almost a responsibility to them. It made no sense; I barely knew them. I had no loyalty to them. I should have been worrying about how to get back to my own Barony.
But I believed in what they were trying to accomplish. I believed that Feodore Vylan needed to go. I believed that theSecond Line should have its seat back on the Conclave, and their lands back at North’s Edge. I believed that we should be a more cohesive society, so the west didn’t starve, and the east didn’t live under the tyranny of psychopaths.
And I believed that my soul belonged to Avalon Halhed, even if I didn’t seem to have a conscious choice in the matter. I’d honed my gut instincts since birth. After all, being an excellent hunter meant recognizing that feeling inside you and trusting it.
That feeling was screaming at me that Avalon Halhed was ours.
I might trust my gut, but I wasn’t a slave to it. No, I’d watch their backs, but I wasn’t going to add myself to whatever little polycule they had going on. I was too old for whatever that was. I’d always be the odd one out.
I’d protect Avalon Halhed with my life—because I owed it to her—and when this was over, I’d let her go. I’d go home and do my duty to my Barony, to my Line, and that was that.
But I’d hear her desperate pleas for me not to die, in every silent moment for the rest of my life.
Fourteen
Avalon
Hayle was happy to be home. There was a lightness to him as he moved through the Mistwoods, like they were where he belonged. A tension I didn’t even recognize had been pulling at his features was now completely gone.
When Braxus and Alucius met us just outside Hamor, it was like the world was right again. Both hounds had run in circles around me, licking my face and shoulders, and they’d even given Vox, Lierick, and Iker a stray kiss and nip here and there. They’d obviously been worried.
Alucius had thoroughly groomed Epsy like a wayward pup, while the stolt just stood there and took it, his fur standing at weird angles, soaked in hound slobber. He’d climbed onto Braxus’s fur and held on tight as they darted in and out of the trees.
More animals appeared, the closer we got to Hamor. Unusual animals you wouldn’t see normally in the woods. Bears and foxes with two tails, huge golden eagles, war cats and wolves. Each of them came up to Hayle, booping him with their nose or waiting for a head scratch, and they all watched me with interest that would be unsettling in any other circumstance.
I wondered if any of them were actually Third Line members shifted into their animal form. I didn’t ask, though; I wasn’t sure that I was meant to know that little secret just yet.
