Page 167

A collective gasp ripples through the square.

Behind me, Arlo’s voice chokes off mid-shout.

Kylian’s face is inches from mine, his eyes wild, his fangs bared, his hand still wrapped around my throat, but the rage drains from him so quickly that what remains is worse.

Horror.

Raw, instant, devastating horror.

He releases me as if my skin has burned him, stumbling back one step, then another, his gaze dropping to his own hand before lifting to the bruises I can already feel forming beneath my jaw.

He shakes his head, a small, disoriented motion, balking at the impossibility of what just happened. He steps toward me, and I flinch. It’s involuntary, born from the pain still pulsing in my throat, and the sight stops him as effectively as a wall placed in his path.

The rage drains away with a speed that leaves nothing behind it but raw, exposed devastation.

He turns from me without another word and stalks off toward the castle. The square remains frozen, hundreds of faces tilted toward us, and the silence carries their shock as they try to process what just happened.

Arlo’s arms are around me, and his warmth folds over my body with a familiarity that reaches through years of shared suffering and stolen moments.

“Please tell me you can explain what just happened?” he murmurs next to my ear. But I’m not even sure what I did.

I lean into him. Just for a moment, just long enough to feel the solid reality of his chest against my cheek, his hammering heart beneath my ear, and his calloused fingers pressing into my hair. He cringes with each stiff movement as the adrenaline fades, letting the pain of his injuries rush back in.

The comfort of him is real, present, uncomplicated in a way that nothing else in my life has been for weeks, and my body wants to stay here, pressed against his warmth, breathing in the earthy scent of him that carries the memory of fields and water pumps and the version of my life where the choices were simple.

But the bond pulses at my throat where Kylian’s hand left its mark, a dull persistent throb that reminds me with every heartbeat that the man who just walked away is carrying a wound deeper than anything visible, and the guilt of standing in Arlo’s arms while that wound bleeds is heavy enough to make me step back before I am ready.

Eagan steps forward then, having materialized from somewhere.

I don’t know when he returned or how long he has been watching, but his eyes move between Arlo and me with attention that misses nothing and reveals less.

“Eagan, you need to send him back to Purgatory,” I say, and the words burn my throat on the way out. “Back to his mother. Back to his sister. Arrange for his return on the next ship and ensure he arrives safely.”

Arlo stiffens beside me. His hands, freshly freed from the cuffs, curl into fists at his sides, and the muscles in his jaw tighten with a familiar stubbornness that I have seen a thousand times on the farm.

“I am not leaving without you,” he says, and the certainty in his voice makes me groan. “I refuse to have everything I’ve done, lost, endured for you be for nothing.”

My hands clamp on his face, my eyes scanning his. How does he not see he is in danger if he remains here? “You saved me, Arlo. You kept me whole and safe. I’ll never not be thankful for everything you’ve done for me. That’s why I need to get you home to your family in one piece. Let me save you this time.”

“You think I protected you so that you could run off with a vampire and live happily ever after in a castle while I’m dumped off at the flesh markets? You know that’s what you’re sending me home to. Crawly won’t have me back after everything I’ve said and done for you. My home is gone, but my debt contract will see to it that I’m sold or killed. You know how this works, but as long as you don’t have to see it, right? As long as you can pretend this is saving me and not condemning me.”

I pull back from him fully. “I’ll speak with the king about settling your debts and possibly your mother’s and Angie’s, but you can’t stay here, and I can’t go with you.”

“Why?” The question comes out sharp, carrying the weight of every fear that has been building behind his eyes since the first night I visited his cell. “For him? For the monster holding you hostage. He just choked you!” His mind can’t comprehend how I appeared between him and Kylian’s hands.

My fingers skim the tender skin of my neck, and the irony of Arlo’s accusation is that he is right and wrong at the same time. Kylian did hurt me, but he was horrified, and it was never his intention to find my neck instead of Arlo’s.

I cannot explain that complexity to someone who sees the world in clean, clear lines the way Arlo does. It’s black and white for him.

“He didn’t mean to hurt me. He was after you!” I point out.

“You aren’t seriously defending him right now, are you?” He steps closer, and his hazel eyes hold a fierceness that leaves no room for evasion.

Eagan growls at his words.

“This isn’t you Ali. These are his vampire charms. You don’t want to stay here. You don’t belong here.”

I shake my head, and Arlo’s gaze hardens.