I drew closer, taking the cloth from his grip, and slowly dragged it over his forehead. I tried to ignore the heated look in his eyes, but my gaze was pulled to those onyx irises. They burned me. Inflamed me. Consumed me.
I kept my hand against his face for a moment longer than was necessary, unable to resist the pull of those eyes. My fingertips trailed over his brow. His jaw. I wanted to lean into him. To touchmoreof him.
My heart quivered, my throat knotting. With ashuddering breath, I stepped back and said in a strained voice, “Stella’s house isn’t far now.”
Theron nodded and cleared his throat. “Yes. We should keep moving.”
I offered a nervous smile and handed the cloth back to him. We set off through the woods, and I tried fruitlessly to steer my thoughts away from the strange, tender moment we’d just shared.
Eiraand I didn’t speak another word until we reached her friend Stella’s house. My mind was a conflicted mess, tumbling between the fear of being summoned by Calista again and the confusion of whatever I was feeling for Eira.
She had been ill. Feverish. Incoherent. And in that moment, I had been utterly terrified of losing her.
Now that she was well again, I had these tangled thoughts to sort through. I already knew I couldn’t kill her when the time came to settle our bargains. But I was beginning to suspect—and fear—that what I felt for her was something deeper. More intense.
Something I couldn’t hide from for much longer.
Stella’s home was a log cabin at the end of the road, lined by the forest through which Eira and I passed. As we approached, I was surprised to find Frisk trotting out to greet us. His thick white coat of fur was shining and spotless, as if he hadn’t been part of a gruesome battle just yesterday.
Eira rushed over to him, and he hopped into her arms, nuzzling against her chest as if he were a kitten. She pressed a kiss to the top of his head, and he leapt from her arms, landing on his feet.
“You tell Mauro about that and I’ll claw your eyes out,” Frisk said, sitting on his hind legs as if the show of affection hadn’t happened.
“Mauro? Is he all right?” Eira asked.
“He’s in the back. We figured he’d be a bit too conspicuous hanging around the front door.”
Eira chuckled. “I agree. And Kendra?”
“She’s napping by the fireplace. Apparently, you assigned her an arduous task.” Frisk’s keen eyes sharpened, and I tensed, wondering how much the dragon had told him. Did he know what Eira and I had done to escape the soldiers’ notice? Kendra had been oblivious, but if she had told Frisk what she’d seen, he would have been clever enough to put the pieces together.
“What about the other creatures?” Eira asked. I could have sworn her cheeks had turned pink, as if her thoughts mirrored my own. “The ones who helped us fight off the soldiers. Are they all right?”
“We lost a few rabbits,” said Frisk. “All the fae beasts survived, though.”
My eyes widened in shock as I processed this. “There weremortalcreatures fighting with us?”
Frisk fixed his dark eyes on me. “You really need to get this into your thick skull, hunter. Species isn’t everything. Unseelie, seelie, fae, or human… Get those damn divisions out of your head or it’ll be the death of you.”
I could only blink at him as he led Eira into the house. For a moment, I lingered in the front yard, my head reeling with the notion that this infuriating princess and her animal friends had turned my entire way of thinking upside down.
I wasn’t even sure who I was anymore. A week ago, I would have said I was a full-blooded seelie fae, an assassinfor the Queen of the Winter Court, only one assignment away from a blissful retirement.
Now, I was a wanted fugitive who had turned against the queen and fought her soldiers, aiding and abetting the vigilante princess who sought to start a civil war in the court.
The fact that I was a full-blooded fae meant nothing now.
But perhaps that was how itshouldbe. Why should my bloodline give me any amount of privilege? Why did that matter to me at all?
My jaw went rigid, my teeth grinding together as I was forcibly reminded of my father.Humans are worthless,he’d said.They were put here by the gods to test us. To make us stronger. We must use that strength to wipe them out and prove we are the more dominant species.
Never in my life had I agreed with my father’s practices and beliefs. And yet, somehow, the idea that the seelie fae were the more dominant specieshadbeen ingrained so deeply in my brain that I didn’t even notice the belief was there.
Damn you, old man,I thought, cursing my father. Even after he’d been taken from this world, his ideals still haunted me, dragging me down like a weight I hadn’t realized I’d been carrying.
And it was exactly why it had been so difficult for me to believe the queen was a Demon Fae. Because she had risen to power, claiming the throne of the Winter Court. Soof courseshe had to be full-blooded seelie; it was the only thing that made sense. Why else would my father have served her?
And yet, thinking of Eira and everything she had gone through… I knew she had more sense than I gave her credit for. How could I have accused her of making this up? Of being delusional?
