Page 175 of Commanding Scythe and Sky

“I guess you will,” he said, brow arched in challenge.

“Pity. I was prepared to offer a sizable reward.”

“Unless that includes convincing Cadoc to let me⁠—”

“Freya!”

Carr’s livid shout had me whirling just as gunfire shattered the mountain silence. Viktor looped an arm around my waist, threw me behind him, and snapped his shield into place⁠—

—an instant before an arrow punched clean through his chest.

THIRTY-FOUR

WHEN I SAY IT’S DONE

CYRUS

August 2nd, 5:35PM

Maybe I’d read one too many accounts of Appalachian folklore, but the woods in these mountains gave me the goddamn creeps. Like spirits instead of trees, every shift of trunk and branch seemed to moan with its own life-force.

But even those goosebumps were preferable to the torture of standing guard. If I thought watching Freya duel my mother was agonizing, it was nothing compared to watching another man touch her.

Two other men, not that I gave a flying fuck about semantics.

Both of them were as good as dead in my book.

I wasn’t even supposed to be here, but a tug at my center had me following them out the door and to Hawthorne House, directly against her orders.

Carr and Cali knew, of course. But I kept everyone else shielded.

Kept her shielded.

So I watched.

Watched that Atreus prick bow and hand her a drink. A drink she brought to her goddamn lips without anyone testing first—we’d be talking about that later. Then the fucker tucked her hair behind her ear, dragged his goddamn paws over her skin, her neck, and somehow missed the way she nearly flinched. Or maybe I only noticed because that thing I’d buried in my chest did.

What the fuck is she doing? I growled to Carrson, glancing to where my cousin stood at the railing, his eyes rotating between me and them.

Her fucking job, asshole.

I closed my shields rather than dignify Carr with a response. It didn’t lessen the blow of Atreus setting a hand at the small of Freya’s back and leading her around like she belonged on his arm. Didn’t lessen the blow that she allowed it.

And then she laughed.

The sound cut through these cursed woods like a knife to the heart. Real. Genuine. A levity I could never give her.

Maybe I’d imagined the flinch, because the longer they talked, the more at ease she looked.

Even if we figured our shit out and survived this hailstorm together, could I ever make her feel like that? Smile like that?

How the fuck could I? I was her enemy’s son.

I’d failed my mother—my crown—and somehow failed Freya in the same breath. Failed to protect my mate. Walked straight into Nix’s trap, only for him to escape afterward. Failed to earn enough of her trust for her to let me all the way in—maybe enough to stop this entire shitshow before it started.

Beyond that cosmic joke, I had never made her laugh like Atreus did—never saw her smile or bat her lashes or play with her hair. Sure as shit never made her feel safe enough to let down her guard and dress like that.

She’d done it for another man… displayed those tight curves for him…