She laughed too, the first time I’d heard her do so since we’d recovered Saralyn and Bes. “I didn’t receive one welcoming word from anyone in the other clans my first time here. I’d proven myself as a competent healer among our own clan, so they stood by me. By the time I returned my second year, I received more kindness. They aren’t quite so openly rude to you because you are Redvyr’s mate. He is a well-respected lord among the clans.”
“I am sorry to hear they treated you poorly. But I can take a few hard looks and harsh words. My father’s court was far more vicious. Of course, that was because my own parents were the ones who often spoke ill of me in front of others. The courtiers were only following their lead.”
Tessa frowned at me, Saralyn asleep in her arms. “Your own parents did that?”
I shrugged, the pain a dim memory now. The leagues of land between us seemed to dull the hurt they caused me.
Even though it had been less than one year since I’d left, it seemed like forever ago that I stood in my father’s study like a mare up for auction, his ambassadors openly ogling me. My brother had only been buried a month when my father summoned me and his ambassadors to him. He’d had me wear my finest dress and even had me turn in a circle so they got a good look at me. His awful words still rung in my ears:She will fetch a high price. Her magick is worth her weight in gold. And her body is made for breeding. Any husband could get several heirs from her. I want only the highest offers brought to me.
Not long after, the highest bidder, Lord Gael of Mevia, appeared at the palace gates, and I was sold before I’d even met him.
“It doesn’t matter now,” I told Tessa as the laughter and voices at the feast grew dimmer. “I’m where I’m supposed to be now.”
Perhaps Redvyr was right and the gods do know best. If my brother hadn’t been killed in battle, then my father wouldn’t have been so bold to sell me to Lord Gael. And I wouldn’t have run away, eventually finding myself here, with this dark fae lord that I loved.
The sudden realization punched me so hard in the heart that I gasped.
“Are you okay?” Tessa reached out a hand and grabbed my arm, thinking I might’ve stumbled.
“Fine,” I said a little weakly as we walked along the stone edge of the butte. “I’ll just be glad when we return to Vanglosa.”
“You and me both.” She sighed, stopping in front of her tent to face me. “It will get better, this difficulty with the other clans. I promise.”
I pulled her into a hug, making sure not to crush or wake Saralyn. Or Hallizel, who hadn’t left the baby’s side since we left Ghasta Vale. “Yes, I know. Goodnight.”
She went into her tent and I walked on, not worried about whether the clans liked me at all. That wasn’t what suddenly weighed on my heart. It was that I knew for certain that I loved Redvyr.
I stopped in front of our tent, staring up at the crescent moon, the clouds billowing.
I exhaled a breath, wishing for him to return quickly. I’d tell him what seemed to be bursting inside me and demand that he give me his mark. That I didn’t need to wait until we returned to Vanglosa. I was absolutely certain that the gods meant for him to be my mate, and beyond that, I knew with all my soul that he was meant to be my love.
A whimpering cry jarred me from my thoughts. It sounded like a hurt wolf off to my right. When the pained whimper came again, I walked toward the sound.
“Mishka? Is that you?”
Though I’d seen Wolf run off with the pack, I’d noticed Mishka still close to camp earlier this afternoon.
The cry came again as I neared a shadowed indention of the butte wall. The clouds overhead cleared, revealing Mishka on her side.
“Mishka,” I rushed forward and knelt beside her, feeling along her fur for the injury. “What happened, girl?”
Her eyes were half-lidded. Though there was little light, I could see and feel that she was breathing quickly. Running my hand along her side, I felt something long and thin sticking out of her haunch. Instantly, I pulled it free and held it up to the moonlight. A dart with blue feathers on the head, the length made of a silvery metal. I’d never seen any beast fae with such a weapon. It looked more like—
Someone grabbed me around my chest, pinning my arms to my sides and knocking the dart from my hand while at the sametime covering my mouth and nose with a damp handkerchief, a strong medicinal scent on it.
I struggled while the person held me hard, breathing deep from the handkerchief, my limbs suddenly going weak.
“Watch her hands,” a male voice I didn’t recognize said somewhere in front of me. “Her claws are poisonous.”
“She’s going out.” That was the hard voice of the male who had me in his tight grip. “Almost there.”
I kicked and struggled, but the male was far too strong to overpower, and my body was drifting, my arms and legs feeling light, unresponsive.
“There she goes,” said the gruff voice next to my ear in high fae, the common tongue of all light fae.
Before I fell unconscious, I heard the flapping of wings—moon fae wings—as I was lifted and carried up into the sky.
Chapter 32
