He forced a breath, and she could almost see him counting something to tame his fire before he finally responded. “I can’t figure out which woman is the real Brela. The markets, the auction, the forest, the prisoner, or the fighter from last night.” Brela didn’t clarify that he should be adding the inn to that list. “I can’t trust my gut because it doesn’t know what to believe.”
Brela leaned forward on Moonheart, studying the man who was studying her right back. She read the unspoken words that were screaming in his head. He was trying to separate Brela from the Night Terror and from the Veil Worshipper, as if they weren’t the same person.
She finally sighed. “Did it ever occur to you that the reason your gut can’t tell the difference between them is because there is none? That who I am, truly, is all of those women?” That weight visibly hit Valkip, his shoulders tensing as his eyes drifted away from her. Counting again. Brela gave him a moment to consider the words before continuing. “Many of those identities have been forced onto me to survive, but there were at least two interactions with you where I behaved entirely by my own choice and not just for survival.”
“Which two?” he asked, his head snapping to her.
Brela grinned and nodded toward the knife in his hand. “You’re holding one answer.”
The forest. A flicker of recognition in those beautiful blue eyes. And then it rippled through the rest of his body. Through those stiff muscles and clenched jaw and bobbing neck. It swirled through the mid-afternoon heat that seemed to warm and curl around her skin, as if he couldn’t help but reach toward her with magic as he found the second answer.
The auction.
For a long moment, they just stared at each other, and Brela wished more than anything she had gone to that inn as herself, not as the illusion of Maeve. Wondered if he would have actually carried her to the bed before he had known what she was. If he would have touchedher, kissedher, in a way he never would now.
Because even with those answers he desperately sought, that chain still held firm. His eyes didn’t dart to her collarbone, but she could feel the restraint through the heat that was wrapped around her. Even with her truth, he would always see three different women, and he had no desire to get involved with the assassinorthe Veil Worshipper.
Brela allowed the guilt to fill her again rather than face rejection. The feeling that she was betraying her adoptive parents for trusting the sun-blessed man. Her enemy, no matter how handsome. No matter how much she saw her own struggle inside him. No matter how much she wanted to yank that chain out of the earth and free him.
It wasn’t her battle to overcome. Baby steps.
She just smiled and winked. “Give me a shout if you see any more Wraturo. We still need to break the tie.”
“Or I could stay quiet and kill them all myself so I can keep this knife,” Valkip replied, his own smirk growing.
“Low blow.” Brela laughed. “Well, Captain Valkip, it’s a good thing that I, too, like to play dirty.”
As she turned Moonheart around, she could have sworn she heard both fire and lightning crackle under Valkip’s skin.
20
Dynamics
Serill found himself utterly fascinated by the three assassins from Averlyn. He’d already known Brela’s fierceness—the Night Terror in every sense of the nickname. She was clearly their leader, but didn’t act like her friends were any less than her. Next was Elias, the earth-blessed man who was somehow the softest and the most protective of the three. Then there was Farrah, the gorgeous earth and moon-blessed woman who hadorderedhim around like she didn’t care he was a prince.
Individually, they were terrifying in their own ways, but together. Gods, their dynamic was like nothing he’d ever seen. The only way he could describe it was a bond that was forged so deep in struggle, they had built something impenetrable between them. He thought he’d developed a connection with Cason, but it was nothing compared to what these three shared through their years of survival together.
That second night, after resting and recovering from the Wraturo and long day of travel, the three of them slipped out of the camp. It was a miracle Serill had seen Cason and stopped him before he stormed after the three and interrupted what came next.
Shouting at each other. Growling, pointing fingers, cursing, and hissing. Serill and Cason had just stared as they each took turns yelling what it was on their minds. Brela went first and was the loudest, snapping at them for trying to rescue her when they could have been hurt. Cursing them for not setting her wagon on fire and getting away. Furious that they were sticking around when there was so much unknown waiting in Aelstow.
The prince was still reeling in the guilt of uncertainty as to his father’s plans with Brela once they arrived that he barely registered the words Elias yelled or the quiet fury that came from Farrah last. He snapped out of it as the three assassins suddenly fell quiet. And he nearly gasped as tears began streaming down Brela’s face and she leapt toward her friends, wrapping them in an embrace that might have broken their spines if they weren’t prepared.
He had walked away after that, returning to the fire and the food Farrah had left cooking. Cason had stayed back, watching carefully, as if they might run off now that they’d created distance from the soldiers. But as Farrah and Elias returned to the camp, Brela walking their horse toward the river, he realized the real reason the captain had stayed. Because his friend suddenly found the need to lead his horse to the river as well, even though the horse had just drank.
Serill was still watching as Elias and Farrah joined him, amusement painted on their faces as well. Clearly recovered from the shouting and swirl of emotions that had just occurred.
“I don’t see it happening,” Farrah whispered, tearing into the bread.
Elias shook his head as he sat. “It’s going to happen the first night in Aelstow.”
“And if they throw her in prison the minute she walks into the castle?” Farrah asked. Elias’s shrug and wiggling eyebrows must have meant something because she smacked his arm.
The man didn’t stop grinning as he turned to Serill. “Want in on the bet, Prince?”
Serill raised his eyebrow. “What are we betting on?”
Elias jerked his chin to the river, where Brela and Cason were staring out at nothing while the horses stood between them. “When Brela is finally going to get the captain to burn through her clothes with that palpable sexual tension.”
