“I’m about to,” Zia said, lifting her chin at him as though she couldn’t see the terrifying differences measured between them, or hadn’t witnessed the armored guards he’d incapacitated with his bare hands.
Cliff blinked, glancing at me as if I might save him.
But it was Rowan who stepped in—and certainly not for Cliff’s sake. He put a hand on Zia’s shoulder. “You need rest, my lady. One of the others can heal this one.”
Zia shrugged his hand off and met Rowan’s flinty gaze. “I will not budge on this,” she said, not unkindly but surprisingly firm.
Although she had no tone of apology, Rowan’s hesitance made it abundantly clear that she rarely threw the power of her nobility around. He stepped back with a huff.
Waving an expectant hand at Cliff, Zia insisted, “Shirt.”
Another beat of astonishment dragged out before Cliff began to comply. He attempted a familiar, suggestive chuckle. “I gotta say, this isn’t the most subtle method someone’s used to get me to take my clothes off.”
Zia lifted an eyebrow. “And do you always put up this much resistance?”
I buried a laugh into my hand when Cliff’s cocksure attitude stumbled. As his shirt came off, however, both Zia and I were shaken to see the harsh red bruising on Cliff’s torso. Parts were already purpling, especially around his abdomen. It could have come from being brutalized by the guards and Rhett or from the vehicle flipping. Whatever the case, I was once again confronted with the knowledge that he was far too skilled at hiding his pain.
“Cliff,” I hissed. “If you’ve been walking around with bruised ribs—and what’sthat?”
My horrified glower set upon what I quickly recognized as Delilah’s cat bite. Around the swollen needle-like punctures on the back of his hand, the freckled skin was aflame with some kind of rash.
Cliff’s mouth became a sharp slant as he inspected the bite wound. I suddenly remembered how he’d been so quick to dodge the amiable felines at Gwen and Hannah’s shop—and what he’d admitted to me there.
“Ohstars,that’s right. You’re allergic to cats!”
“Even witchy ones, I guess,” Cliff said.
I instinctively spread my wings to move toward him like I had done dozens of times by now, following hunts, but Zia gently took my wrist and brought me back down.
“Rest,” she told me, and I found that I couldn’t argue.
“Damn. She’s pushier than you, Sylv,” Cliff said. “And that’s saying something.”
I had half a mind to direct his attention to his easy laughter and flushing face in Zia’s presence—becausehecertainly didn’t seem aware of it.
When Zia took to the air, I was once again entranced by the way her voice weaved through the incantation like it was music. Cliff held perfectly still, eyes fixed on her misty teal magic with a new kind of bewilderment, utterly vulnerable and enchanted. After the bloodshed tonight, I understood how unraveling it was to take in something beautiful, something that existed only to be gentle.
Rowan glared stoically at the display, and I swore the flames in the fireplace were licking dangerously high.
“You mentioned a safe haven for fairies earlier,” I said quietly, pulling Rowan’s attention away from where Zia’s hands pressed to Cliff’s swollen bite.
He looked at me askance. “Did I?”
“You made it seem like Aelthorin was a temporary stay. Where’s your home village?”
“Nowhere that exists anymore.”
“Humans?”
To my surprise, he shook his head. “No. Our destruction is thanks to a neighboring village with generations of mounting rivalry. Now, neither place is alive to hate the other. Our people are more than capable of being needlessly cruel to their own.” He scrutinized the traitor mark on my face. “I’m sure you can understand that.”
Being shamed by my people on the will of our council was one thing, but the destruction of two entire villages? The horror of it dried my mouth. Then there was Aelthorin, also gone. Mother and Hazel may have been spared the brutality of capture, but I couldn’t stop thinking about how many more fairies must be in captivity.
Aelthorin couldn’t be the only raided village, either.
That terrible thought spread like poison in my mind. “Aren’t you worried that your haven has been unearthed by humans as well?”
“Not likely. The whispers say that even fairies struggle to find Hearthwood without a guide. I doubt humans would have much better luck.”
