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But then I was flooded with warmth.

Warmth I knew. Strong, familiar, steady.

Arran.

He’d pulled me back from the void. He’d saved me.

But when I opened my eyes—when had I closed them?—the male who stood over me was not Arran.

“Who the hell are you?”

41

ARRAN

He may have saved my mate, but that wouldn’t stop me from killing him.

From the moment he’d laid hands on her, I’d been imagining slicing his throat. That was all it took to kill a feeble human.

But the strategist, the battle commander, demanded reason.

Even while my beast roared within me.

So, I settled for a hard kick straight to his ribs. “Who are you?”

The man’s face contorted with pain. I watched his legs fidget, his chin tremble, all the telltale signs of human weakness.

His response was a strangled grunt, a breathless exclamation through the pain that still racked him from my blow. “Percival St. Pierre.”

Osheen had bound him to a tree—little effort, fae against human. Lyrena was still asleep, Maisri standing over her, within shouting distance if she needed us.

All of which allowed me to narrow my focus on the man—on extracting the information I needed so I could kill him and have done with at least one threat.

My booted foot caught his, pressing it backwards into the dirt until he moaned with pain. I savored it before asking my next question. “Why have you been following us?”

“He’s been following us?”

Fuck.

I hadn’t heard her approach.

She was so fucking quiet when she wanted to be.

I gritted my teeth, keeping my back to her. “I told you back in Eldermist that we were being watched.”

Veyka stopped just short. Waiting, to see if I’d turn around and speak to her. Stubborn wench. I dug my heel in harder, until the man was whimpering.

She didn’t tell me to stop. The look she tossed the human as she came to stand beside me was vaguely bored. But when she turned those searing blue eyes on me, they were filled with fury.

“Watched and followed are not the same thing.”

I lowered my voice, low enough the human would not be able to hear. “You have enough to contend with.”

“I see.” There was no understanding in her voice—only the promise of murder, death, torture. Things my mate reveled in. “This is another way of protecting me.”

She was going to make me pay, I could already feel it. Grovel, apologize, all of it. I’d be lucky if she allowed me into the tent that night. “Veyka—”

My breath caught on the last syllable as her dagger pressed to my throat.