He finished, “It’s practical.”
“Practical,” I repeated. It seemed like a punishment.
I slid my hand under the pillow, across the smooth fabric, until I found the edge of the coin. I drew it out, feeling as if it were dirty, and held it out to him. “This is yours.”
My tone was barbed. How dare he act as if I had betrayed him when he had betrayed me over and over?
“There is it,” he said, his voice cool, unapologetic. He took it from me, careful that our fingers did not touch, and I wiped myhand on my tunic, trying to get away the feeling of having held something filthy. “Goodnight, Cara.”
He sat down at his desk and turned down the light, leaving me with only the glow of the coals and his back for company. I wondered if at some time during the night he would truly come to bed or if he could not bear to sleep beside me.
Thirty-One
Cara
In the morning, he was beside me. This time, we were not touching; the gap between us felt vast. But I studied his face.
His dark hair was mussed, falling across his forehead, and it made him look younger. Sleep stripped away the layers over Fear that controlled rooms, that made shifters shy out of his way. He looked unguarded, his lush lips slightly parted, the hand on the pillow beside his face calloused and scarred.
He was unfairly beautiful. How was I supposed to chisel apart all the versions of him and know what was real?
I remembered the night before, the tender kiss and the cuddling in front of Bismyth, the change to being careful but spare in his movements as soon as it was only us. He’d touched me only when he had to.
I sat up carefully, still stunned to find myself fully healed in a way that I never could have been as a mortal back in Stonehaven. The potion had left behind that scraped-open feeling, the one that came from sleeping under a healer’s draft, where the body had rested and the mind hadn’t.
My emotions were still dismayingly close to the surface. I closed my eyes, wishing for strength. The need to see my family and know they were truly well was a restless tide. The thought of pretending to be Fear’s loving wife overwhelmed me.
Rees had been asleep beneath the windows. When I slid my feet out of bed, moving slowly to avoid waking Fear, he rose too and padded toward me. I ran my hand over his sleek black head in good morning before I went to wash and dress.
When I stepped out of Fear’s room, Rees followed, so close that his shoulder was against my hip, and my palm rested in his fur. I was grateful that I was not alone.
Bismyth was still asleep. Beyond them, the barracks were empty.
Not quiet-in-the-morning empty. It was deeply silent; the only sound was the waterfall’s steady rushing. Golden light filtered across the vast stone floor of the anteroom, but not a single shifter stirred. No voices called back and forth, bantering about training or the superiority of their clan.
I was unsettled even before the shadows moved.
My hand was at my chest, my heart beating too quickly, and Rees darted in front of me at my reaction, baring his teeth.
Unease raced down my spine like a spider. I felt, rather than saw, the presence and looked over sharply as Rees’s head swung around too, his nostrils flaring. Nightwalkers waited in the shadows around the edge of the anteroom.
The Nightwalker who waited down the hall from Bismyth’s door met my gaze evenly. His face was shrouded by a mask; it made his eyes appear inhuman.
I backed toward Bismyth’s door, but the Nightwalkers were not trying to hide now, and I picked out more of them.
Half a dozen at least. Positioned at every exit.
How many more had chosen to be unseen?
If they meant to take us, they’d have done it already. So what were they doing?
There was movement coming up the stairs. The brown-haired mortal servant. Heida.
I stood my ground to make sure the Nightwalkers didn’t hurt her.
Her head was down over her tray. Her breathing was slightly ragged, and I didn’t think it was from the stairs. When she reached the top, she finally saw me, and she came to a stop. Her face cycled through relief into something that looked uncomfortably like awe.
“I brought tea. I didn’t know if—” She stopped.
