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Remy floundered, staring at the prince trapped against the tree. When was the last time she had heard her full name? She could not remember.

The morning sun rose in the sky as the birds sang.

“It’s you though, isn’t it?” Hale’s throat bobbed, overcome by the same emotions that were roiling through her. “You are my Fated mate.”

The tears came slipping heavily down her cheeks as she heard him call her that. That’s why she couldn’t deny him anything, why she stepped toward him when her brain told her to pull away. Fate had pulled them together.

“When did you know?” Remy still stood there, frozen, as tears poured down her cheeks.

“You run through the woods too easily, too fast. You can hunt in the dark. But I truly suspected when the Shil-de ring glowed in your hands. That ring was meant for you, for your family.” Hale’s cheeks dimpled even as he swallowed again. “But there is only one reason I know for certain that you are my Fated.”

“What?” Remy could barely breathe.

“I am so desperately in love with you,” Hale said as tears welled in his eyes.

A sob racked Remy.

Hale slid his arms out of his still-pinned sleeves, leaving his cloak like a ghost against the tree. He ran to her. Colliding into her, he pressed Remy against a tree trunk as his lips covered hers. He kissed her with a desperation she matched with her own.

It was real. Her Fated mate.

She wasn’t sure whose tears covered her cheeks. Remy wrapped her arms around Hale’s back, pulling him in tighter until every part of them touched. She needed this, needed him for so long. He was the other half of her soul. Their love had existed before they were even born.

“You almost died,” Hale cried, his lips still on hers. The impact of that past night was hitting him at last. She thought of his grief-stricken face holding her lifeless body and kissed him harder.

“I’m here,” she promised, sliding a hand up to his cheek.

Hale’s hands gripped her hips tighter. Remy opened her mouth to him, letting his tongue explore into her. Hale groaned hungrily. Remy grabbed him around the neck and hoisted her legs up around his hips. He pinned her against the tree, and she moaned as his hands moved along her body. She would not feel whole until their souls melded into one.

An ear-splitting growl rent the air. They froze. She heard their horses’ restless whinnies from far away. It did not sound like the mountain lions from the night before, but some other beast that called this forest home.

They both looked at each other, resigned and deflated that this joining would have to wait until later. They needed to get out of the forest. Hale gave Remy one last gentle kiss and put her down. His fingers threaded through hers as he led her back to camp, unwilling to let go of her.

As they began their long trek out of the forest, there was nothing else, nothing but their certainty and the silence in the morning forest between them. They were Fated mates.

* * *

Having sold their horses at the Northern Court border, they now trudged on foot. They planned to buy Northern horses, bred for the cold weather and thick snow, once they reached their lodgings in Andover. Remy knew Rua was alive, and so they could not delay. They had come so close to death. The quiet now pulled those horrors into stark relief. The adrenaline had worked out of her system, and she faced the terrible truth of who she was: the next in line to the High Mountain throne.

How could she claim that? How could she put an entire court’s hopes onto her shoulders? She and her sister may be the last of the fae, but there were the red witches to consider too. Yexshire was home to others as well: many humans, witches, and fae who had called Yexshire home, all displaced by war. She would need to rebuild the city . . . and that’s if she took back the Immortal Blade from her family’s murderer, King Vostemur. It was too much, far too much to even fathom.

“Are you okay?” Hale’s voice sounded so far away from where Remy sat resting. He appeared through the midday fog like a phantom. He knelt down to her and placed a warm hand on her cheek. She hadn’t realized how cold she was until that warm hand was there. Snowflakes dotted the air and snow would soon cover the land. Hale took off his jacket and wrapped it around her, that salt air smell enveloping her as he sat.

“I thought you were dead too,” Remy whispered, exhaling a curl of steam.

The vision of his gaunt, skeletal face flashed in her mind. She still felt gripped by that fear, thinking of the scaly beasts emerging through the murky water. An unwelcome tear slipped down her cheek. Now that she had started crying, she wasn’t sure if she would ever stop.

“Hey,” Hale said, wiping her tear with his thumb. “I’m okay. We’re okay, we’re safe now.”

The word safe was her undoing, and the tears spilled down her face once more.

“Remy,” he murmured, as he gathered her into his arms, holding her with a gentle firmness.

Safe.

She had never felt safe in the past thirteen years. She knew she wasn’t safe from the world, even now. But being in Hale’s arms, feeling that warmth and love radiating into her from every angle, it was the closest she had ever felt to safe.

“I had to jump into that lake. I had to,” she said into his chest, the tears heavy again. “I couldn’t watch another person I love die.”