“Because I’m not,” he said, his voice rumbling against my chest. “I never doubted you for a moment. You are my mate, and they could never keep you from me.”
My chest warmed. “Because we made a marriage bond.”
“No,” he said firmly. “Because you’reyou, Tessa Baran. Brilliant and fierce and determined. They could never hold you down, not now that you understand what you’re capable of. I knew you’d come back to me because of that, not because of any vow or bond. You were always going to find me, and I was always going to find you.”
“Kalen,” I whispered. The tears were coming quickly now. “I was afraid I’d never see you again. I thought they might have killed you.”
“I would have crawled from my grave if they had. Nothing was going to stop me from reaching you, not even death.”
I leaned in and kissed him. His mouth was hot and hungry against mine, his lips full of a need I felt deep within my soul. I tightened my arms around his neck and hung on, unable to let go of him, unable to put even a breath of distance between us. I needed him toconsume meuntil I could no longer tell where I ended and he began.
But a vicious howl cut through the moment. Kalen pulled back, and all the light in his eyes vanished like a candle blown out. His jaw tightened as he glanced around the silent clearing.
“We have a lot to catch up on, but we can’t do it here. The beasts might have gone for reinforcements.”
I wasn’t entirely certain that was true, not after what I’d seen from the shadowfiends outside of Malroch. But the gods might think to look for us here. Andromeda would expect me to search Gailfean for Kalen, and the scent of our blood would be fresh on the air, even though we’d both healed.
“You want us to run?” I asked.
He lowered me to the ground and took my chin in his hand, tilting back my head. “I know what you’re thinking. We’ll never win against the gods if all we do is run. But we also won’t win unless we have a plan. Fighting them here, like this, it won’t work.”
I blew out a breath. “You’re right.”
Another shriek echoed through the night, and Silver came charging into the clearing. He looked agitated again and nudged me, telling me we needed to go. I mounted him first, then Kalen climbed on behind me.
“To Dubnos,” he murmured.
“No.” I sighed, hating what I had to tell him next. “To Endir.”
Seventeen
Fiadh MacCain
THOUSANDS OF YEARS AGO
Orla sat cross-legged beside the fire, roasting a rabbit she must have caught while I was investigating the remains of the star. She looked up and smiled as I walked into our camp. Her skin crinkled around her eyes. As fae, we didn’t age the same as humans did, but Orla’s eye crinkles had been with her since we’d been nothing but wee things tumbling through wheat fields taller than us. Until that bastard lord had come into our lives.
My heart clenched painfully. It had been a long time since I’d seen her smile like that.
“Fiadh?” Her smile vanished. “You look frightened. Is everything all right?”
I cleared my throat and tried to smooth away the tension on my face. The gemstones throbbed in my pocket, thumping in time with the beat of my heart. It almost felt as if they were reaching inside me, searching for something they wanted. Searching for a way to consume me whole.
I should have left them where I’d found them. They were dark things, come from the dark skies above. Deep down, I knew that messing around with them would lead to nothing good. And yet…I couldn’t free myself from the hope one of them had given me. It said it would help Orla. She’d never have to worry about returning to Aesir. No one would ever find her.
For that, I would gladly give my soul.
“I’m fine. Just got a tad too close to being discovered by the king,” I said, trying to sound more lighthearted than I felt.
Alarm flashed across her face. “King Ovalis Hinde? You ventured that close to Moonstone?”
“The comet went closer than it seemed from a distance.” I moved near the fire and sat a few feet away, wincing at the blast of heat. Sweat dampened the back of my neck from the return walk, and I never had been one to love the heat. The cooling shores of Star Isles had always been my home. I would have happily stayed there for the rest of my life, if fate had dealt us a different hand.
Orla frowned, an expression I’d grown much more accustomed to seeing on her face. “I warned you not to go near it.”
“That you did.”
She sighed and moved back to the fire, turning the rabbit. “Well, did you find anything?”
