Page 46

“You sure you’re up for running the whole way?

” I guided my hand down her side, fingers slipping through her thick coat, searching for any signs of injury.

Shifting helped the Velesians heal faster, and I didn’t feel so much as a scab.

Even if all her injuries were resolved, the amount of healing she’d had to do in the last two days had been taxing on her system. “Cali could carry you.”

I barely managed to pull my hand away when Rynn snapped and let out a warning growl.

Touchy, touchy.

“Quit fussing, Sam,” Cali said as she landed silently next to me, a mocking smile on her face.

I squinted at her. “Worried I’m going to take your spot as the resident fussian?”

“That’s not a word.” She rolled her eyes.

“You’re not a word.” Was I the perfect representation of maturity at twenty-three?

Yes. Yes, I was.

“I don’t even know how to respond to that.” Cali rolled her shoulders before glancing at the sun. “Follow my lead once we get to the badlands. I’ll do my best to guide you all around the worst of it.” She grimaced. “But it’s leading up to the trapper’s breeding season.”

“Wonderful,” Alaric muttered. “More fucking arachnids. As if those starfish things a couple of months ago weren’t bad enough.”

“You good?” I tried and failed to keep from laughing as he awkwardly tried to figure out where to hold on to Kieran on the back of their bay gelding.

Kieran gave me a mischievous smirk before nudging the horse to the side, and Alaric immediately wrapped his arms around his friend’s waist with a panicked expression.

He really was the worst rider.

Roth didn’t look happy, but I suspected that had more to do with them having to hold on to Draven and not so much being on horseback. They didn’t really like physical contact with people—except me, which made me feel warm and fuzzy inside.

“We’re heading out,” Aniela announced from astride a white horse, Brennan mounted behind her.

She pulled their horse to a stop a few feet from me, and the mare pranced and snorted in Rynn’s direction, clearly not thrilled about being so close to a wolf.

“Most of my rangers are escorting the elderly and children on horseback. The rest will help those who are traveling on foot.”

I tried not to think about all the ways that could go wrong. On horseback, it was a two-day ride to House Devereux. Less if they rode fast, but that was unlikely considering the people riding. Walking would take a solid week.

There were some outposts they could stay at along the way, but that meant collecting more travelers since they’d have to explain things to the locals.

All the outposts between here and House Devereux were under Salvatore’s control, and Aniela was confident the residents wouldn’t question the order to evacuate.

The sentiment that there was something deeply wrong with the Sovereign House had been brewing for a long time amongst the Salvatore Moroi. The abrupt change of leadership would only further their suspicions.

I hoped we all survived this so that we could work on repairing that distrust. For too long, we’ve had an every-House-for-themself mentality, and that wasn’t great for longtime Moroi survival. It was something Carmilla and I apparently agreed on—we just differed on how to achieve unification.

“My brothers should receive my message by this evening,” Roth told Aniela. “If all goes according to plan, they’ll meet your people with additional rangers on the road.”

“You have my thanks.” Aniela nodded deeply. “We’ll be unreachable while we travel to House Tepes, but I’ll send word once we’re there.”

“Travel safe, friend,” I said sincerely.

Their trip was just as dangerous as ours.

House Tepes was in the north of the Moroi realm.

The safe route was to travel to the Sovereign House, then cut west, but obviously that wasn’t an option.

So Aniela and her small group of rangers would be cutting straight through the forests in the center of our realm.

All sorts of nasty things prowled there.

“You as well.” Aniela glanced to where Vail waited for me by the horse, an increasingly impatient look on his face. “And good luck with that.”

She waved goodbye and turned her horse to leave. Brennan hadn’t acknowledged us once. Super friendly, that one.

It was time for us to get moving, yet I couldn’t convince my feet to budge.

Everything between Vail and me was so fucked.

I was excellent at compartmentalizing, but even I had my limits.

Keeping physical contact with Vail to a minimum had helped keep him in the category of useful tool to be wielded as necessary .

An eight-hour ride was going to smash that to pieces.

Something Vail damn well knew because the bastard knew me.

“Sure you don’t want us to kill him?” Cali said casually, not even trying to be quiet. Rynn let out a low growl, her gaze locked on Vail.

He apparently wasn’t the least bit concerned about my two best friends plotting his death because the asshole just smiled.

“If anyone kills him, it’s going to be me,” I muttered. “Let’s get on with it.” I glanced down at Rynn. “Don’t fall into anything this time.”

Her head snapped away from Vail, and her growl deepened as a golden sheen rolled over her mismatched eyes, which seemed brighter in this form.

If she thought we would ever let her live that down, she had another thing coming.

Holding on to that amusement, I stalked towards Vail and easily swung up onto the beast of a horse. A second later, he landed behind me, one large arm looping around my waist while the other rested on my thigh.

A shiver ran through me before I could stop it. Something told me this ride was going to feel a lot longer than eight hours.

I’d trained myself to be a very patient person.

It didn’t come naturally to me, which was why sometimes my temper won out, but in general, I didn’t mind the quiet.

Most people couldn’t handle silence in a conversation or negotiation, so they seeked to fill the void.

My willingness to embrace the quiet had won me many a trade deal.

Vail hadn’t spoken in five hours.

Five. Fucking. Hours.

His arm remained looped around my abdomen, and his hand had only strayed from my thigh to retrieve the water bottle—of which he’d made sure I’d also taken a drink. Not by asking. Just by holding it up for me.

I’d expected him to use this time to once again explain to me why he’d done what he had. That he’d been being loyal to Carmilla and hadn’t realized she was seriously fucked in the head. Or that he’d assumed I’d be able to work things out with her and everything would be fine.

None of this would have been news to me.

He’d said it all before when I’d been imprisoned and I’d had no choice but to listen to him explain in great detail why he’d chosen to attack my best friend, steal the crown, and do nothing as Draven was tortured and both he and I were thrown in the dungeons.

Sure, he’d done what he could to help me get through my menstrual cycle, but he was the reason I’d been locked up in the first place.

And he hadn’t apologized. The moon fucking forbid that the words, I fucked up and I’m sorry , passed through Vail Ferenc’s lips.

Argh. Maybe I could shove him off the horse?

Subtly, I shifted in the saddle, trying to determine how solid of a grip he had on me.

“Don’t even think about it,” he grunted.

“Think about what?” I asked casually, as if we hadn’t been riding in tense silence for hours.

“Trying to shove me off the horse. That will only result in both of us going down.” His breath tickled my left ear as the hand on my thigh dug in a little harder. “And if you’re that eager to have a tussle with me, I’m sure we can figure something out at the temple.”

Before Vail, I hadn’t thought it had been possible to be confused, enraged, and horny all at once. Honestly? Could have gone my whole life without ever experiencing that.

“You’re insufferable,” I seethed and gripped the reins with one hand so I could reach back and grab my dagger—the one he’d refused to give back after I'd thrown it at him—off his belt. He didn’t try to stop me, but I could feel his amusement as I fumbled a bit before getting it free.

I considered stabbing him—not lethally, just a flesh wound—but the bastard would have probably just taken that as encouragement, so I slid it back into the sheath on my thigh and left it there.

Right next to his hand.

“I’m a lot of things these days,” he said evenly. His grip on my thigh loosened, and he started lazily tracing loops on it. I liked it. The slow, methodical pace was relaxing. Between that and his broad chest against my back, I felt safe.

Which was ridiculous. The man behind me was anything but safe. He’d proven that over and over again. Sure, he might not go back to Carmilla after what she’d done to his rangers, but I had no doubt Vail would find some other way to fuck me over.

I hated that I still liked his touch. Craved it.

It had to be this stupid magic tying us together. Maybe I’d find some answers in the temple as to what this was and how to get rid of it. Then I’d be able to think straight when it came to him.

“Why exactly did you insist on riding with me?” I did my best to ignore his damn fingers and narrowed my eyes at the others, who rode ahead of us, giving Vail and me time to clear the air, apparently.

I had no doubt that had been Draven and Kieran’s doing because Alaric and Roth occasionally turned around to glare at Vail.

Well, mostly Roth. Alaric tried to a couple of times and almost fell off the saddle. He’d gotten considerably better with a crossbow, but riding was clearly never going to be his thing.

Rynn was scouting ahead—I could just barely make out her furry white ass—and Cali was soaring above us. One advantage of the badlands was that they were flat in every direction. Once in a while, a mesa would rise out of the ground, but it was impossible for anyone to sneak up on us.

Above ground, anyway.

Vail didn’t answer my question right away, and just as I was about to push him for a response, I felt the echoes of grief and trepidation inside my chest. Not mine .

. . I’d tucked my grief for Adrienne and Emil into a box and shoved it onto its metaphorical shelf with all the others.

Close to it was the angst and stress for Nyx.

No. What I was feeling now belonged to Vail.

Whatever this emotional feedback was, it seemed to only happen when we were in close contact, and it wasn’t all the time. With Draven and Roth, it was more consistent, but between Vail and me, it felt more strained, like flashes of emotions here and there.

“Carmilla . . .” Vail trailed off, then another feeling shot through our connection, so intense, it made me inhale sharply.

White-hot rage.

“What about her?” I rasped, my hand tightening on the reins, causing the mare to toss her head in annoyance.

“Did she have anything to do with our parents’ deaths?” He spoke the words so quietly, I knew the others hadn’t heard. Not that it mattered. Most of them had been there when Carmilla had stated what she’d done, and I’d told Roth later.

I’d been planning on telling Vail but had figured it could wait. There was nothing to be done for it now, and he was still grieving his rangers. No purpose in opening up an old wound when there was a fresh new one still seeping blood.

“Yes.” I forced myself to relax my grip on the reins as a numbness took hold. It wasn’t coming from Vail. This was all me. The problem, I was learning, with compartmentalizing things was that, sooner or later, you had to deal with them.

I’d never dealt with losing my parents. I’d just let my grief fester in that damn box.

Something told me Vail had done something similar. He’d thrown himself into becoming the perfect ranger and then taking up the mantle of Marshal—just like his parents. I’d dedicated myself to being the unfathomable Heir and then to solidifying our alliance with House Laurent by marrying Demetri.

Both of us had looked to Carmilla as that stand-in parental figure.

She’d shaped us into weapons she could wield—and had made sure to destroy our childhood friendship so that we’d relied only on her in those early years.

Before I went to Drudonia and became close with Cali and Rynn.

Before Vail bonded with rangers like Adrienne, Emil, and later Nyx.

Looking back, I realized that she had tried to sabotage my relationship with Cali and Rynn, making little comments here and there, but I’d lived at Drudonia, and that distance between me and Carmilla was probably what had saved me.

If I hadn’t had my friends and if I hadn’t carved out a piece of myself outside of that constant pressure to impress Carmilla, would I have left Demetri?

Or would I have remained at House Laurent in a loveless marriage? Carmilla probably had plans to take out Marvina at some point, and then Demetri and I would have risen to the Heads of House role. Carmilla would have had two Heads under her thumb without even needing a Fae crown.

That was what my parents had died for.

Something wet and hot streaked down my face. I raised my right hand from where it had been resting on the handle of the dagger to brush the tears away, but a large hand caught mine and tucked it against my chest—right over where that connection thrummed.

Vail’s other hand rose, and he gently brushed my cheeks, wiping away the tears before wrapping that arm around me too.

He rested the side of his head against mine as I silently sobbed in his arms, finally grieving the loss of my parents after denying it for so long. Vail didn’t say anything, just held me as I felt his own grief wind through mine. We’d both lost so much because of Carmilla’s obsession with power.

Slowly, something else wrapped around my grief. Something enduring and resilient.

It was love. The unbreakable kind.

At first, it was just coming from Draven, but then Roth’s bond intertwined with his.

I’d been learning over the last couple of days the subtle distances between how their emotions felt through the bond.

Another choked sob broke from my lips when Vail’s bond joined.

Tentatively, like it wasn’t sure it was allowed to be there.

I might have lost my parents—and my aunt to her own greed—but I still had family, and they wouldn’t ever let me go.

So I let myself fall apart and finally weep for the parents I’d loved and lost . . . in the arms of a man who had broken my heart.