Chapter 2
Declan
My quick hands scooped up a large canvas pack and stuffed Fallon’s favorite nightgowns, her wide-toothed hairbrush, and a few dresses and underclothes into the bag. She had a rainbow of bottles on her windowsill so I packed those into her nightgowns. My hands lingered on the soft fabric. I wouldn’t get distracted by touching intimate clothes that had graced her skin.
Something big was happening, if Evie’s babbling scramble in my head was any indication. Anticipation thrummed through me. Evie and I were a different kind of best friends than she was with Fallon, but I trusted her. Despite my designation as the peacemaker and joy-bringer of the group, they didn’t take advantage of me. If they also didn’t see the real me, well, that was okay. No one expected me to attend royal meetings or give adviceon territory disputes. I could sit in her kitchen all day if I wanted. Underappreciation had its perks.
Running back into the dining hall, my stomach groaned as it sloshed around. What a feast. Honey rarely added that much magic to meals, but our luck held when she didn’t level the castle with how pissed she was in the kitchen. I would have comforted her as the hall broke into chaos, but I couldn’t ignore Evie’s frantic attempts to tell me to take Fallon on an adventure.
Various monsters righted chairs, servants quickly cleared dishes and I no longer smelled that cockweasel, Javier, anywhere in the Keep. Good riddance. All my restraint channeled into not tearing him limb from limb in Fallon’s kitchen.
Ward pulled out a chair for Evie, who pointed at me with an accusatory finger. I skidded to a halt in front of her with the list of things she’d told me to gather.
“Where in the seven hells have you been? I had to exile Fallon without an escort!”
Well, Ihadtrusted Evie.
“You WHAT?!” My heart almost burst out of my chest. “I was gone for five minutes!”
Honey was a lot of marvelous things, but a seasoned traveler was not one of them. All her considerable energy lived in her kitchen, her food.
“She turned a guy into a bowl of soup. So, yeah. Dinner party over. I stalled them as long as possible but that panther shifter was going to tear her to shreds.” Eviemade a shooing motion. “You should have just bitten her three years ago, Dec. She couldn’t have gotten that far.”
I might have bitten her when we met and lost my skin, sure. Everyone and everything else forgotten, I scrambled through the Keep. She was out there alone. This couldn’t be happening. The only other thing Fallon cared about was her knives and the fact that they still gleamed in the kitchen firelight was a testament to how upset she was. Ramming a few changes of clothes for myself into the bag, I shifted and wiggled the rope loops around my neck, shooting off into the night. Four feet would find her faster than two.
The night’s bitter wind made my fear worse. Fat flakes hit my face, melting in my fur. The first stirrings of winter should have waited one more night to make an appearance.
Did she take a horse?
Was she cold?
Did she eat before she left?
I was so used to being glued to Fallon’s side for at least some part of every day that my mind raced when I didn’t know where she was. Dread ate at my insides, pushing my paws faster.
I wouldn’t lose her now. Slowly, over the course of a couple of years, as we had become part of Evie’s extensive family, we moved closer and closer into each other’s orbit until I knew she favored the light blue nightgown I grabbedover the warmer red one. She had cried on my shoulder when Maggie left to hunt Noth and confided that she was jealous of Evie’s adventures. I forced myself to spend at least some time away from her, but I always ended up in her kitchen at the close of the day. She didn’t see me as her mate… yet. I’d been content to bask in her presence and be there for her in whatever way she would let me.
Panic warred with the thrill of this change. We had gotten stuck in our routine. Even though she had to be scared, hope filled me for the first time. I just had to find her fast. Fallon hadn’t exactly traveled outside of her village before coming to Harrowood. Did she even remember which way was north? I had been to almost every city in the Harrowlands.
The trail of her apples and cinnamon scent wasn’t easy to follow as the winter wind kicked up and the sky spat icier flakes of snow. My paws splashed through the mud, backtracking when I lost her scent, and ignored the freezing wind that burrowed into my fur. I would track her to the ends of the Harrowlands if needed.
My night vision spotted her down the road, crested the rise. Walking, of all things, a small and vulnerable lump of cloak and dogged steps. There was no way to contain a full-body wiggle. My heart squeezed, digging my claws into the dirt of the road. She must have been mad not to have grabbed a horse or a wooly mule. Fallon wasn’t a fan of the cold and in the dead ofnight, there were plenty of things in the Harrowlands that would happily eat her.
Hey, strange lady. Need a ride?I called to her as I got closer.
She whipped around, her chin-length curls straggling across her face, her cheeks rosy from the bitter cold. My breath stuttered in my chest. Lips already chapped, eyes red from crying, face puffy with a gleam of snot running to the top of her full lip, she had never looked more beautiful. I could stare into those autumn eyes until the warmth and shadow consumed my soul.
She also hid something behind her back, but not before the scent of cured meat hit my nose.
Whatcha got there?
Fallon wiped her mouth and dragged out the enormous stick of spiced meat. “Just eating my feelings.”
I eyed the rather long tube of meat. She had already destroyed half of it.
You’re going to be sick, Fallon.
She took another large bite and I absolutely, in no way, thought about anything dirty as I watched her lips wrap around the fat sausage. “Don’t say that. This is a perfectly acceptable way-”
