Considering Dawn was with him, I assumed this was Lord Roan—who Stryker had told me went by his middle name, Zander—the Ethereum lord she’d married, and Stryker’s brother. From the look on Stryker’s face and the set of his body I could tell that it was taking him effort not to push Zander off. Especially considering the story he’d just told me.
At last, Zander released Stryker, climbing out of the booth again to wrap his arm around his wife.
“Adrien told us where you were,” Zander said in response to the unspoken question in Stryker’s eyes.“He also told us you weren’t alone.” His grin widened as his gaze shifted to me.
“I knew it was you the moment Adrien described Stryker’s companion to us,” Dawn told me excitedly.
The shock of seeing her finally wore off and I really looked at her. Dawn had always been a serious fae. I supposed that was to be expected since the fate of Faerie had been placed on her shoulders since birth. It’s not that she was ever mean or cold, but the few times we’d interacted it was like I could almost see the weight of her responsibilities pressing into her.
But looking at her now it was like someone had taken that weight off her. She finally looked comfortable in her own skin and even though I detected a hint of sadness in her gaze, it was clear she was truly happy. And as Zander beamed down on her, his love for her was also clear.
This was hard for me to process, the fact that the men we were sent to kill were nothing like we were told.
Pushing those thoughts from my mind, excitement bubbled up in me and I rose and embraced my fellow Faerie princess. Well, princess no more, in Dawn’s case. If what I’d been told was true, she was a Lady of Ethereum now.
“We’ve been all over Ethereum searching for you,” Dawn said when I stepped back.
“Searching for me?” I asked, and she nodded.
“Yes, ever since the day of the fall equinox. We knew you’d be coming to Ethereum. By now you’ve probably discovered that what we’ve been told about this place is false,” she said, taking my hands in a firm grip. Her eyes begging me to understand.
“Oh, I know we’ve been fed a bag of lies,” I told her, my gaze shifting to Stryker before bouncing back to Dawn.
I didn’t miss the bemused expression on her face as she looked between us before she wiped it away.
“Here, sit,” I offered and moved down the seat. Stryker sent me a scowl, but shifted down as well to allow Zander into the booth beside him.
“I’m so sorry we didn’t find you sooner,” she said once she and Zander were settled. “We thought you’d appear in the Western or Southern Kingdoms, which was why we started there first.” She sounded a little funny when she said that and I couldn’t help but wonder if rather than thinking I would turn up in the Western or Southern Kingdoms, they’d just hoped that. “We arrived from the Western Kingdom last week and have been traveling through the Southern Kingdom to find Adrien ever since then. He wasn’t in Soleum like we’d expected so we came to see him at his country house. It was just good luck that we arrived today.”
“Not luck, my love,” Zander said as he reached across the table and took Dawn’s hand. “Fate.”
She smiled warmly back at him and nodded. “Fate.”
It felt like I was intruding on a private moment, but being trapped in the booth next to Dawn, there was nowhere to go to give them privacy.
Stryker cleared his throat loudly, breaking the pair apart. Dawn’s cheeks turned pink as she put her hand back in her lap.
“Great. So now that you’ve seen I haven’t killed the girl, you can be on your way,” Stryker said gruffly, clearly put out that his brother was here.
Zander leaned back in his seat and assessed his brother. There was a knowing look in his eye that was clearly annoying Stryker. “So, what happened to taking your time torturing her to send a message to her descendants?”
I gasped and Stryker sent me a guilty look before glowering back at his brother. “There were … extenuating circumstances,” he ground out.
Zander chuckled. “Oh, I’m sure there were.”
“She did try to skewer me the first moment we met.”
“Hey,” I said, defensively, and he arced a brow at me as if baiting me to refute his words. He knew I could not. One corner of his mouth twitched up ever so slightly, making him look extra roguish and so it was my turn to blush.
“Well done,” Dawn said with a small smile, referring to me attacking Stryker. Seeing as she had been raised to be an assassin, I easily understood the respect in her gaze.
“If she had succeeded, I wouldn’t be here right now,” Stryker grumped and Dawn just shrugged and made amehface as if that wouldn’t have been the worst thing.
Stryker crossed his arms over his chest and shot her a glare equally as icy as the one he’d given his brother. Dawn didn’t seem to care in the least bit.
I wondered what actually had happened between the two of them and made a mental note to ask Stryker later.
Zander shook his head at his brother. “Are you still mad about us not coming to help you when you first became lord?”
