All twelve come to a sudden halt. After a careful sweep of the area, they dismount as one.
The muscles in their arms flex and bulge when they lift the jugs from the carts, carrying them up the stairs to the well at the top.
“Can you see any fangs?” Nia asks.
“No. You?”
“Not from here.”
Then again, their mouths are pressed flat, so it’s difficult to tell.
Drawing water is a slow, tedious process and the trip back to the carts takes two, sometimes three men to carry each jug. If there weren’t steps, they could wheel the carts right up to the well. Doesn’t seem fair that they should have to carry them when all we do is turn on the tap.
The man at the front seems to be directing the others.
And he is magnificent.
Not handsome in the conventional sense like Ronan or Trevor. His jaw and cheekbones look sharp enough to slice through you. But they’re not nearly as cutting as his eyes. Even from this far away, I can see they’re black as coal, and always alert.
Each man wears a dagger at his belt, the handle made from white wood. These weapons look nothing like Ronan’s blade. The prince’s was for show. I have a feeling theirs have tasted death.
Definitely not what I expected. “They’re…”
“Monsters. I know. I did warn you.”
Monsters? Hardly. “They’re beautiful.”
The man at the front turns his head toward us, and my stomach tenses, my lungs holding my exhale hostage. It’s a coincidence, nothing more. There’s no way he can hear or see us from all the way over there.
Even after I force out my breath and inhale anew, my head continues to spin.
“You are mad, Kerris Dawn,” Nia whispers.
I might be mad, but I stand by what I said. Look at them. Even their flat stomachs are corded with ridges of muscle. They remind me of the bulls I’ve seen, alone in their pens. Not a pinch of fat on any of them.
“Why are there no women?” I whisper.
“Because they’re born not of flesh and bone, but of darkness and shadows.”
Nonsense. They look flesh and bone to me.
The longer I stare, the louder my heart sings inside my breast until Nia pushes away from the wall and tugs at my skirt. “Come on. You’ve had your gander. Let’s get out of here before they eat us for dinner.”
She’s right, there is no logical reason for us to linger. Still, I find myself looking back one last time…
And finding a pair of black eyes trained on me.
Time stands still, the final grains of sand in an hourglass falling to their doom. My thundering pulse floods my ears as if I’ve been sprinting instead of standing frozen, staring back at the darkest eyes I’ve ever seen.
The Unseelie moves not a muscle, and neither do I, caught in a silent exchange where only the two of us exist.
Nia’s tug of my skirt drags me back to this world. I duck out of sight, but the strange sensation of being watched follows me all the way to Nia’s cottage. We burst through the gates, falling onto the soft grass next to a forsythia bush riddled with bulbous bees.
Saints above… I don’t think I’ve ever run as fast.
“That was the most exhilarating moment of my entire life,” Nia pants up at the downy clouds, the heel of her hand massaging her heaving chest.
Exhilarating, indeed. Although not nearly as exhilarating at locking eyes with that Unseelie fae. “I think he saw me.”
