Page 120 of With Wing And Claw

Naxi hummed a pensive little sound. ‘What do you want to do?’

Flee.

For the very first time, it seemed a conceivable possibility to her mind.

She’d been minutes away from death, and not even Naxi had been able to protect her. The court knew of her plans, and even if they’d finally identified the leak, that damning information was still out there – which meant her only paths forward were to give up or to go head-to-head with her own damn army, and quite likely die in the process.

She didn’t want to give up.

It seemed stupid to fall in love and die the next day, though.

Which didn’t leave her with a whole lot of options.

‘We could sneak away and hide somewhere,’ she made herself say, even though the words lay bitter on her tongue, even though the thought itself made her want to shrivel up in the hot water. ‘Your idyllic nymph isle, just as an example.’

She expected agreement. Cheerful triumph, quite possibly.

Instead,Naxi narrowed her eyes and said, ‘But that’s not what youwantto do, is it?’

There really was no use in arguing against demon senses.

Sheshouldn’twant to stick around at this hell of a court. By all laws of scheming and self-interest, it had run out of advantages: no more chance of success, and a towering chance of an untimely death. There were other ways to save the humans. Hell, she could move all of them to that nymph isle with her – surely they would agree to that, if the alternative was facing Bereas and his mob again?

Her heart wasn’t that rational, though.

And the problem – the ridiculous but undeniable problem – was that shecaredabout this fucking place.

Not about the courtiers and the violence and the blood-soaked trees of Faewood. Not about the Mother’s ghost haunting every inch of the castle. But she loved her rooms. The gardens and the hills. The shore, the beaches, the sea of which she knew every reef and islet. It washers, this island, the soil in which her roots had grown, and she’d be fucking damned before she let another cutthroat conqueror burn it all to ashes.

Do better.

She had no one left to serve, and she wasnotbowing again.

‘No,’ she said, voice hoarse but unwavering. ‘No, it’s not.’

Naxi’s shrug sent the water sloshing against the edges of the tub again. ‘Well, then we’re not fleeing.’

It was almosttooeasy.

‘But you want to leave.’ No use in beating around the bush here. ‘You’ve been wanting to leave since we arrived.’

‘Ye-e-es,’ Naxi admitted, almost unwillingly, as she draped her arms over the ivory edge of the bathtub. Her wet skin shone golden in the deep, warm light. ‘I suppose so. But I also don’t want you to do something you regret and then resent me over the choice, so if you don’t want to leave, I’m not going tomakeyou leave.’

Bewildering, how a demon without empathy managed to be more considerate of her choices than most of her allies had ever been.

‘We might die,’ she said feebly.

‘Hmm.’ A devilish grin. ‘We might not.’

They might not.

And at once the poison in her veins did not matter anymore – the ache slumbering in her every muscle, the exhaustion weighing down her mind. They might survive. Shehadto survive, truly, because how in the bloody world could she die after a hundred and thirty years of unwilling pining had finally turned into something as unexpected, something as utterly bemusing, aslove?

‘I suppose we have until noon tomorrow, then,’ she said.

Naxi sat up straighter and squinted, rivulets of scented water running down her arms, her shoulders, her pale breasts. ‘I thought you’d be sleeping.’

‘Yes,’ Thysandra said, unable to suppress something suspiciously akin to a smile. ‘So does everyone else.’