Jett’s muffled voice replies, but I can’t make it out. All my attention is on Fox as he groans and stands up. He’s still half hard and covered in glistening sweat, his hair loose and messy.
“Wait here,” he mutters to me. “I’ll go with him and then you can leave after.”
“He’s not an idiot,” I hiss under my breath. “He knows you don’t use magic. Who would have shut the door?”
Fox gives me a helpless look and doesn’t answer as he grabs a towel from a hook on the wall and tosses it to me. He uses a second towel to clean himself up as much as he can, then begins gathering his clothes from the floor. He looks at his armor briefly, then, seeming to decide it would take too long to put back on, digs a fresh set of clothes out of the wardrobe instead. I sit in the middle of the rumpled bed watching silently.
Fox’s brow wrinkles in disgust as he pulls a clean shirt on over sweat-slicked skin, but there’s not really anything to be done about it now. When he’s dressed, he shoves his boots on then glances back at me as he moves toward the door.
Our gazes connect and my lips tingle, as if ready for him to kiss me goodbye—but of course he doesn’t. He just gives me one last look and then opens the door as little as possible before slipping out into the hall.
“What the fuck, mate?” Jett asks. “Want to explain that?”
Fox makes a noncommittal sound, then shuts the door, and I hear their footsteps disappearing down the hall.
Ileave the barracks without further incident and return to my tower where I’m able to bathe and put myself back together, so when I descend back downstairs no one would ever know what I’ve been doing all afternoon.
In the kitchen, I find Beatrix and Odessa, and discover that everyone else has left. Alix has gone back to the mortal realm to visit her mother. Daemon, Kastian, Jett and Fox are in the village helping to look for some missing children.
Later that night, Alix has returned—bringing her mother and grandmother with her—but the men still aren’t back. The snowis coming down harder, and everyone is getting worried. Alix, Odessa and I agree to go look for the guys.
We pile into an enormous horse-drawn sleigh, with Odessa at the reins. I sit beside her, using magic to keep the snow off of us, and Alix sits in the back. Admittedly, if the mood wasn’t so tense, it would probably be fun.
We ride in silence for a while but don’t see any sign of the guys or the missing children they were looking for. Twin lanterns cast yellow pools that bounce and sway ahead of us, barely penetrating the darkness. Every time we pass over a snow drift, the horses’ bridle bells jingle merrily.
“Okay, I know this sounds stupid but I just have to ask,” Alix says from the backseat. “Is there really a Yule witch?”
There’s been a lot of chatter in the village lately about some mythical witch kidnapping the children. Personally, I find that offensive. Still, I bit my lip as I answer. “I mean, technically anything is possible. You can’t prove she doesn’t exist.”
“Yes you can,” Odessa snaps. “I’m telling you there’s no witch. Fae don’t have that many kids. If we really lost children every single Yule there wouldn’t be any left. Anyway, the word ‘witch’ doesn’t even describe the creature in the stories.”
“How so?” Alix asks.
“‘Witch’ is a human word,” I pipe up immediately. “Witch, sorceress, enchantress…they’re all words we use to describe humans who have magic but no Fae ancestry.”
“I’ve heard you call yourself a sorceress before,” Alix points out.
I grimace. Of course she has, everyone says that. I’m not even entirely sure they’re wrong…I definitely don’t do magic the way the other Fae do, but given that I had to teach myself entirely alone that’s always made sense to me. “My mother was a sorceress, apparently,” I try to explain. “But I’m not.”
“Your mother was human then?” Alix asks.
I bit my lip again before answering slowly. “…no. I don’t think so.”
Alix furrows her brow. “But then?—”
“I know it doesn’t make sense,” I cut across her. “I don’t really know. I don’t remember her since she died giving birth to me and Beatrix has never explained things as well as I’d like. I just know that my mother was called a sorceress often, and that doesn’t usually refer to the Fae. I’m fully Fae as far as I know, and that’s definitely where my magic comes from even if I use it differently than Daemon or Kastian do.”
“Regardless,” Dessa says, waving off my explanation. “The ‘Yule witch’ is just a legend. Even if she was real, the creature in the stories sounds like something else to me. A shapeshifter maybe? Or some kind of hag…not that I believe she really exists.”
Alix laughs darkly. “That doesn’t make me feel better.”
“Don’t worry,” I tell her, slightly distracted as I try to use my magic to move tree branches out of our way while still maintaining the bubble of warmth that surrounds the sleigh. “Wouldn’t you both know if Daemon or Kastian were really in trouble? You’d feel it, right? I don’t feel anything, so they’re all probably fine.”
There’s a beat of silence where I force another large pine tree to shift out of the path of our sleigh, squinting my eyes with the effort.
“Why wouldyoufeel anything?” Dessa asks, turning to me with a shrewd smile.
I look over at her, startled. “Huh?”
