Page 29 of A Fate of Ice and Lies (Fated #1)

Her friends watched me watch her leave.

“What?” I growled .

While Ryenne smiled wide at me, Donnie glared. Nate was smart enough to focus his attention on his coffee.

“I don’t know how I feel about you and Teddy,” Donnie said, nudging his chin up.

I wasn’t sure if he said it in challenge or concern, so I waited for him with my hands fisted on my lap.

“It doesn’t matter what you think,” Ryenne countered. “Teddy gets to make up her own mind.”

Donnie leaned forward, propping his elbows on the table. “She’s family.”

“And she’ll stay family regardless of who she dates or fucks or whatever.”

Fucks. I’d looked up that word after hearing it several times and learned of its many uses. Of all the words Ryenne had to use, did she really need to say Teddy and fuck? My cock couldn’t take it, couldn’t take the implication of being deep inside her.

But did that mean she’d fucked others? Jealousy roared, and just like that, my length flatlined.

“Besides, have you seen Elias?” Ryenne waved a hand in my direction. “I mean, I like you, Nate. Maybe even love you, but even you’d do Elias.”

Nate’s brows raised to his hairline. “With abs like that, you’re probably right.”

I stilled, my mouth hanging wide open.

“Don’t get me started on his ass.” Then the crazy bastard winked.

And me? I howled out a laugh that could rival one of Nalari’s roars.

Nalari was uncharacteristically quiet on our ride back to Javier’s, where I checked on Jasmine. Thankfully, she had remained fever-free. I quickly healed his other sister so I could hurry back home and check on my friends. If I was lucky, my uncle would’ve already left.

Nalari remained silent as she flew us back to our cottage, too.

It worried me that she hadn’t sassed me about Nate’s remark about my ass or abs.

That she hadn’t gloated over how much Victoria loved the dog Nalari had fixed, more so than the sled or girl I’d made.

That she hadn’t roared about the people in town who’d wanted to kill me.

But I took the silence to think about Teddy. How much more comfortable she was with me. How she seemed to want to touch me as much as I wanted to touch her.

As soon as Nalari landed, my uncle met me near the pens of our livestock. Of course, he’d waited for me.

His face was drawn and tired and somehow seemed older than he had last night.

“How’s your back?” He lifted his chin in greeting.

It almost sounded like he cared, like the uncle I’d grown up with.

“I’ll live,” I said, gauging him the same way he had assessed me yesterday.

“Unhealed?”

Rather than answer him, I removed the shirt Donnie had given me when I mentioned not wanting Victoria to see my wounds. It was a tight, short fit that rubbed against the wounds. After removing the wrap and gauze Teddy had put there, I turned so my uncle could see his handiwork.

He hissed in a breath, and when I faced him again, I could have sworn regret clouded his features.

“I’ll live,” I repeated.

“The female helped you?” he asked.

I inched the shirt back on slowly, but it still grazed the open wounds. “She and her friends,” I said.

I wasn’t sure if he knew how the people in Colina had turned against me. If he knew her friends had stayed with her to protect me. I didn’t withhold information from him, but I wasn’t entirely open either.

“Of course.” He let out a humorless laugh. “And you fell for it, I’m sure. You thought she tended to you because she cared for you. And her friends, they stayed for what? Moral support?”

His taunting tone grated on my nerves. Made me remember the scent of his pleasure at my pain.

I gritted my teeth. “Something like that.”

“Nephew,” he sighed out. “Your judgment is clouded because of your bond to her. Reject her as you forced her to so you can be free of her and clearly see the reality of what’s happening.”

When my primal instincts threatened to flare this time, I pushed them back. “Why don’t you enlighten me on this reality, Uncle?” My words came out brittle.

“Allow me to show you.” He slapped my shoulder across an open wound.

I hissed and bared my growing canines at him.

He held his hands up and gave me a grim smile. “Apologies, Elias.”

But that smell of his pleasure emanated from him. I narrowed my eyes at the remorseful expression he wore. I didn’t trust it. For the first time in my life, I didn’t trust my uncle.

I walked with him through the pens. As I did every time I walked the grounds, I kept a mental tally of the livestock and vegetation. I noted who was near giving birth, how the young were growing, what they required, and how I could continue to feed them without taking away from the people.

I stalled. “We’re missing two cattle.” I rushed through the other pens and noted we were also missing a horse. Betrayal boiled through my veins, and I turned to my uncle, ready to fight the male I’d once held in the highest esteem. “Did you take them?”

His canines grew, ready to fight me.

I stood before the male who’d trained me. Who, despite my greatest efforts, I’d never been able to beat. Where he had once been bulkier than me, his stomach now rounded. He was still tall, but his trunk-like arms and legs had lost much of their muscle.

“You would blame me for stealing from you before the people of your region?” he hissed out.

His words clashed against me, and I reeled.

The people. Just because they’d never stolen from me didn’t mean they wouldn’t. And last night, they’d have had the perfect opportunity with me sick at Teddy’s and Nalari far from our home.

“Now what do you think of your mate and her friends?” Uncle Hudson sneered. “Still think she was looking after you because she cared?”

With my eyes narrowed, I worked my jaw back and forth. “Why don’t you tell me what you think?”

“Don’t let this female make a fool of you,” he chided, pulling back his canines while his posture loosened. “She and her friends kept watch over you simply so they could ensure whoever stole from you could get away with it.”

No. She’d let me stay with her because I was too weak to bend space or fly on Nalari. She’d taken care of me because she cared for me. She and her friends had protected me.

That was the truth. Not this ugly lie my uncle wanted me to believe.

Still. ..it was convenient, wasn’t it? Whoever had stolen from me had done so when neither Nalari nor I were around.

“Don’t,” Nalari said. “You know the truth. You and I both felt how Teddy cares for you. She protected you last night.”

“The others?”

“The others stayed as much to protect Teddy as they did you.”

Somehow that made me feel better. Knowing her friends would protect her was like a balm to my soul.

George, Brenton, and Everly rushed to me. Their faces were a mixture of anger and pity. They knew what my uncle expected of me. How I’d have to find the thieves and punish them.

“Where you thought you showed mercy last night by taking the boy’s punishment, you showed weakness,” Uncle Hudson said.

“This is as much my fault as it is yours. We must fix this, Elias, before they get any more ideas about stealing from you. You will find out who stole from you and bring them to justice.”

Already knowing this, I didn’t flinch. Instead, I showed him a resolve I didn’t feel. “Yes, Uncle.”

“Good.” He cupped the back of my head, so I lowered my forehead to meet his. “We will make things right in this realm again.”

“Of course,” I grunted .

With that, he disappeared, bending space to whatever other region he deemed needed his attention.

I stared at our livestock. Although we still had many left, if they’d stolen from us once, they’d do it again. For Teddy’s sake, for her survival, I couldn’t allow it.

“Nalari and I will put an alarm around the pens and vegetation,” I told my friends. “If someone tries to steal from us again, we’ll know it.”

“I did you one better.” George grinned. “See, I had a feeling something would happen last night, so I used some of my magic on the livestock so that if anyone stole or harmed the beasts, they’d get sick.”

While his grin grew, my frown deepened.

“Genius, huh?”

Vith! This might backfire.

“How sick?” I asked.

“If they eat it, they’ll be vomiting for days. Maybe over a week.”

“None of these people can withstand vomiting for a week,” I growled. “They’d die, and it wouldn’t just be on you, but me too.”

“Elias . . .”

While I wanted to scream at one of my closest friends, I reeled away from him.

“Nalari,” I shouted.

Rejecting the way my back burned in pain, I ran to the closest clearing, where Nalari awaited me. The climb to her back was even harder this time, and it became increasingly difficult to ignore my back.

“Are we seeing the chief of police or Donnie?” she asked.

“Donnie.”

The chief of police had proven to be a chief only in title.

He cared little for his people, while Donnie was always around, both helping and fighting for the people of this region.

I had to let him know about the stolen livestock, not only to see how he planned on keeping his people accountable but also to ensure whatever magic George had used was reversible.

When we were closer to town, she lifted her large snout in the air and turned her head from one side to the other as she sniffed. She pitched westward and flapped her wings harder.

“I knew they stole from us last night,” Nalari admitted.

“Why didn’t you say something?” I asked. “It would’ve been nice to have been prepared against my uncle.”

“You were happy.” She huffed. “If I’d known your uncle would be waiting for you, I would’ve told you.”

“Do you know who did it?”

She didn’t answer.

“Nalari,” I asked in exasperation.

“I don’t.” Another long pause. “After Teddy’s friends arrived and I felt you were safe, I left to hunt something far worse.”

I stiffened and rested my pounding head on the back of her neck. “What is it, Nalari?”

“Do you remember last night when I told you to tell Teddy I’d watch over her donkey?”

I did.

“She specifically asked me to look out for a three-headed dragon.”

Blood drained from my face while my heart slammed against its cage. But hydras, here in the human realm.

“Nalari,” I whispered.

They were one of the most lethal creatures from our realm.

It could regenerate limbs, but worse, if a head was cut off, two came back in its place.

Their blood was as poisonous as the fumes they breathed from their nostrils, and although it didn’t kill if it touched you, it ate away your skin in a way that made you pine for death.

With the thunderbirds and now hydras as a threat, I feared for Teddy and her friends. Feared for all the human realm.

“Did you find any?”

“Some hydra tracks,” she said. “There were more lirio tracks, though.”

A roar built and died in my throat. But I wouldn’t be defeated or let these creatures harm Teddy or any of the people in my region. I just wasn’t sure how to keep them safe, especially from the lirio, who could camouflage against trees and run faster than any creature in our realm.

“They lead to a cave deep in the forest on the north side of our region. It’s strange, though, Elias. Their prints are everywhere. I saw them around the woods that surround Teddy’s house. A few others outside of Colina. Some more, close to Javier’s place. But they aren’t attacking.”

“That’s a good thing, Nalari.”

“It isn’t,” she argued. “Think about it. Hydras are brutal. They kill not for survival but for sport. If they’ve been roaming these territories for a while now, why haven’t they killed anyone yet?”

Not to mention the lirio, a breed of faerie like the nyxx who hated us light fae and would kill us for no other reason than that hatred. What would they do if they heard who the prince of Niev loved?

My breath caught in my throat. “Someone’s controlling the hydras. The nyxx aren’t smart enough to learn mind control. The lirio, maybe. It’s said mages could, but no, mages have been dead for years. No one else has the kind of magic needed to control them.”

Her deep sigh made her body vibrate. “That’s the other thing. Every time we’ve flown by Teddy’s house, I feel something. Like a pull to protect her. It was stronger when I was right outside her house. It feels like — like she’s in some sort of danger.”

My blood ran cold, and the need to go to Teddy to make sure she was okay rushed through me. “Nalari, we have to ? —”

“We’re going to speak to Donnie about the stolen cattle and the danger the idiot thieves put themselves in,” she interrupted with a snap of her jaws.

“Teddy. . .” I could bend space and transport myself to her, but I’d never done it while flying.

“You will trust me on this, Elias,” she demanded. “Teddy doesn’t know it yet, but I’ve opened myself to her the same as I did with you when I was first made your Guardian.”

Confusion warred with the dread that filled my icy veins. “You’re Teddy’s Guardian now, too?”

“I am.”

“How?”

“Need I remind you, I am a dragon. I am magic. I do because I can.”

“She’s safe, then?” I asked. “You’ve spoken to her?”

“I won’t speak to her or let her know of our connection until I’m ready.” She growled, and a plume of white smoke shot from her nostrils. “I trust her, Elias, but your female either has possession of something that holds soul magic or she herself is practicing it.”

“She can’t practice soul magic,” I argued.

Teddy was good. She was kind. She wasn’t from our realm, and she wouldn’t have knowledge of it. Besides, it wasn’t like Teddy was a mage.

Right?