In our haste to escape the Kingdom of Storms, we’d had little time to talk. Plus, I hadn’t wanted to ask her about my wolf sister when we’d been surrounded by terrified storm fae. They were still within hearing range now, but most were asleep.
“One of the gods burst through the stone. Not sure which one.” Fenella leaned against the wall and spun one of the miniature daggers along her necklace, deep in thought. “I told Nellie to run, and then I put myself between the god and her, thinking I was the stronger of us. But I didn’t stand a chance. The god slid his sword into my gut. Next thing I knew, Nellie was a wolf, and she was launching past me. You know how she said she has claws and fangs? Well, she wasn’t fucking joking. She did the same thing you saw—tore through the god’s neck with her claws. I think she caught him off guard. Anyway, it worked, and we ran. She saved my life, I suppose. Now I owe you both.”
I shook my head and opened my mouth to respond, but the words had left me.
“You didn’t know she could do that, I’m guessing,” Fenella said.
“No, Fenella. My sister has never shifted into a wolf before. Not that I’ve seen.” And she wouldn’t have kept something that big from me.
“It must have been Oberon’s barrier,” Toryn said. “It muted her powers like it muted yours.”
“But then wouldn’t you thinkIcould shift into a wolf, too? She’s my sister.”
“She’s never shown any indication she can, er, kill things with her touch,” Fenella said with an apologetic smile, flicking her eyes to my leather gloves. “Your powers are showing up in different ways.”
I nodded, though it didn’t make sense. As far as I knew, neither Andromeda nor any of the others had ever transformed into a wolf. But of course, we still knew precious little about them and what they could do, and even less about how to stop them.
“The important thing is,” Fenella said with a wicked smile, “her claws can rip through their fucking necks. Doesn’t kill them, but…she might come in handy again at some point.”
I narrowed my eyes. “My sister is not a weapon.”
“She’s all we have.”
“You must be mad if you think I’m going to send my baby sister to fight five immortal beings when she can’t even kill them.” I shook my head and took a large step back. “I’m going to go check on her. Don’t bring this up again.”
I whirled on my feet and strode out of the Great Hall. Fenella’s voice rang out behind me. “She’s not a baby anymore, Tessa.”
But I just gritted my teeth and kept moving. Nellie’s pale face flashed in my mind, along with her fearful eyes from the day Oberon had grabbed me outside our house and pinned me to the ground. I thought of all the times I’d shouted at her to hide and all the times she’d listened. And I thought of the way she’d cried that day, twenty years before. I remembered it so clearly now when before, it had been nothing but vague shadows in my mind. The day my father had thrownherinto the mists first and forced her to call upon her powers.
She’d shown me her hands then, dripping with blood where the claws had punched through her skin.
That day, I swore I would never again let anyone harm her, especially our father. And so I had volunteered to take her place as his experiment.
All this time, those memories had been lost to me, but they hadn’t been lost to my sister. How long had she suffered because of what he’d done to her? How difficult had it been for her to keep her lips shut when I broke down, my wounded heart and soul and mind refusing to see the truth? No wonder she’d never told me. She knew how much it hurt, and she’d wanted to spare me from it.
She had always been so much stronger than I’d given her credit for.
And yet I would not send her out there as some kind of weapon. I would rather die.
I reached her room and cracked open the door. Inside, she lay curled up on a rug before the hearth, sound asleep. The light of the flames danced across her peaceful face. Even in this strange wolf form, I could see her. I could understand her. She was still Nellie. With a sigh, I closed the door and leaned against the wall, brushing aside the stray tears that had fallen to my cheeks.
“She’ll be all right,” a deep voice said from beside me.
Kalen.The tightness in my chest unfurled as his warmth and his mists pressed against me. He joined me in my spot against the wall, his shoulder brushing mine. For a long time, neither of us spoke. We didn’t need to. The past few days had been long and hard, and for a brief moment in time, we just took this chance to breathe.
After the stillness seeped into my bones, Kalen shifted toward me. “I’m so sorry, love.”
Frowning, I tipped back my head to gaze up at him. “You have nothing to be sorry for.”
“I let him touch you.” He slammed his palm against the wall, his jaw tense and hard. “He could havekilledyou, and yet I did nothing to stop him.”
“That’s not your fault,” I whispered, taken aback by the ferocity in his voice—not to me butforme. “You did what you could.”
“I am meant to protect you,” he said in a lethal hiss. “I would rather rip out my own fucking heart than let anyone eventouchyou.”
And then suddenly, I understood. With my gloved hand, I carefully wrapped my fingers around his wrist and pulled him away from the wall. It looked like he was seconds away from trying to punch a hole through it.
“It’s the marriage bond, Kalen,” I said. “The magic of it, it’s making you feel this way.”
