“TheStar of the Sea?”
“A Nephilim warship,” Tristan replied. “As soon as Tor reached us at the temple and told us what had happened, we knew it was too late for any kind of diplomatic solution. The Nephilim have supplied two regiments. One marched south to keep Dornar occupied; the other sailed here as quickly as we could.”
Tristan grunted before continuing. “Tor guaranteed us that you would escape and head toward the port—and that the first place you would come is the headland, to get a look at what was happening in the town. We were planning to set up camp out here, but you beat us to it.”
Mathos shuddered. He couldn’t get his head around how much faith they’d had in him. Especially when he’d almost lost her to Dornar.
“We’re going back to the temple, then?” he asked, his voice gruffer than he’d hoped.
Tristan looked from him to Lucy standing uncertainly beside him and back again. “Maybe. Let’s get back to the ship safely and then we can talk about it.”
That made sense. No point in standing around in the open. Before he could even say a word in agreement, Tristan had wrapped Lucy in a heavy black cloak from his saddlebags, offered her his hand, and boosted her up onto Jos’s horse.
“Won’t he need—” she started, but Jos simply chuckled and launched himself into the air.
Lucy stood up in her stirrups, watching as Jos beat his heavy wings, her face rapt, and the bastard loved it. He spun himself over in a lazy tumble and then bowed with a flourish, still a yard off the ground.
“That was beautiful!” All of Lucy’s tension fell away as she laughed. That gorgeous laugh he thought of as his.
How could he have ever been so blind to her natural joy and kindness? She had genuinely never meant anything hurtful by her first response to his beast. She had been a woman alone in the dark, constrained by two big, well-armed men. She had been afraid, and he had punished her for it.
And yet she had asked for his forgiveness more than once. Had freely given him her trust. And he knew, instinctively, that she would love him if he gave her half a chance. Maybe already did.
Gods. He would never deserve her.
Jos gave another aerial tumble and then smiled and winked at her, basking in her approval. Then looked straight at Mathos with a smirk.
Fuck. Was this what Tristan and Val had felt when he had flirted with Nim and Alanna? It was a miracle they hadn’t killed him.
“Can you do it again?” Lucy was still gushing. “Can you fly next to me and tell me what it feels like?”
Jos lowered himself to the ground and walked beside her as the stallion started to move. “Of course, Your Majesty. What do you want to know?”
Garet rolled his eyes heavily as he handed over his reins to Mathos along with another heavy black cloak and launched himself into the sky. At least one of those idiots could be trusted to do his job as a lookout.
Garet’s stallion skittered beneath him, and Mathos realized that his beast was grumbling loud enough to disturb the horse as he watched Jos banter with Lucy, Tor riding up to flank her on the other side.
She turned her head to look at him over her shoulder, her smile as wide and as beautiful as he’d ever seen. Lucy, looking at him like he had given her the world.
Not Lucy. Lucilla. The fucking queen.
And he wasn’t giving her the world, he was taking it from her.
Chapter Seventeen
Lucilla hesitated at the entrance.
She was going in. She was. She just needed a moment.
Captain Cassiel’s cabin was far smaller and darker than she would have imagined, filled with trunks and books and heavy wooden furniture.
But that wasn’t what made her pause; it was the three pairs of eyes watching her so intently. The three serious faces that belonged to people she had never met before but felt as if she already knew.
Gods. Did it have to be these three people?
The ride down the chalky paths from the headland into the town had passed in a blur. The Hawks had flanked her, Mathos at her rear, two men in the skies at all times, directing their path away from danger.
Everyone was cloaked, hoods up, tense and vigilant, making her heart beat hard in her throat in a way that had nothing to do with the speed with which they were riding or the treacherous rock-strewn paths they sped down to reach the town.
