Page 3 of Water and Wild

“No,” he said quickly, then seemed to reconsider. “They don’t know what they saw. It’ll be fine.”

“It came on so fast.”

“I know,” he said again, wrapping an arm around her shoulders and leading her out of the training yard.

Elyria’s chest heaved as they plodded along the path that would take them back to the manor. The weight of what had just happened crashed down on her like an anchor, threatening to drag her into the deep with it. The pull of the dark power in her was getting stronger. Each time it slipped through a crack in the steel box she had constructed within herself to contain it, it poured out faster, took over her more completely. It was getting harder and harder to force back into herself.

If she didn’t learn how to contain it, to bury it completely . . .

“I know,” Evander said for the third time, and Elyria blanched at the realization she’d spoken her last thought aloud.

She gazed up at the man she loved, the one who had picked up the pieces of her after every slip, after each time she unwillingly ceded control to the darkness. Who had comforted her even knowing all the terrible things she’d done under its influence. Who hadn’t judged her for any of it, had loved her in spite of it.

“You don’t need to carry this alone,” he continued. His voice was so quiet she wasn’t sure she was meant to hear when he added, “That’s why it’s time to finally do this.”

She tensed, even as exhaustion pulled at her mind. Do what? she wanted to ask.

She didn’t get the chance to.

Not as they arrived back at the manor and a handful of frantic attendants ran out to greet the duchess’s son and his companion. And not as Evander was already looking past her, past the house, his eyes fixed on the sun as it dipped below the horizon.

2

TASTE

KIT

Kit awoke to the worst kind of sunlight.

The kind that was far too bright, far too cheerful, and rudely shined directly in her stars-damned eyes.

Groaning, she turned over and buried her face in the plush cushions of the drawing room settee, which Kit now realized was where she’d passed out after the previous night’s festivities.

The sweet aftertaste of honeyed wine clung to her tongue, but the pleasant effects had long since worn off.

The less pleasant ones, however . . .

“Well, well,” came a chipper voice. “Here lies the mighty Katerina Ravenswing, slain by her own excesses.”

Kit muttered a string of unintelligible curses into the cushion.

“Beg your pardon?”

With great effort, Kit lifted her head just enough to squint at her infuriatingly perfect brother, who leaned against the doorway, arms crossed, golden eyes sparkling with amusement.

“I said, ‘fuck off,’ ” she rasped. “And I’ll throw in an ‘I hate you’ for good measure.”

Evander strolled into the room with a chuckle. “I gathered as much. Sadly for you, my fucking off won’t do you much good, as the next person to come looking for you is sure to be our dear mother. She wants to see you before the council meeting.”

Kit waved a lazy hand in the air. “I’m sure she and the king can solve the world’s problems without me.”

“Important as you are, little sister, I didn’t mean she expected you to attend council. Not that our mother would ever presume to ask.”

Kit snorted.

“She just wanted to check in with you over breakfast, given that neither of us has seen you since before you headed off to the Gilded Gryphon or wherever those friends of yours have been loitering lately.”

“Breakfast?”