Page 79 of Boundless

Even so, they stepped back. Lowered their arms. Looked at me like they were expecting me to go on, give them a better answer or explanation.

“Not as a king, you say, huh, bastard?”

Lyall’s voice, on the other hand, made me flinch.

“Rune, do not kill him,” I said, moving until my back was pressed to his.

My God, just to feel the heat of him there brought me back to life. Just to know that we were touching erased everything that had been weighing me down since I last saw him. My knees were stronger, my magic more intense. Simply because he was there.

“I’m not going to kill him,” Rune said, and I could have sworn he was smiling. I heard it in his voice.

Laughter—Lyall. “You’re abastard.You’re no king, Rune. You don’t look like a king and you don’t behave like a king,” he spit.

“And yet the Midnight throne submitted to me,” Rune calmly said. “Just because I won’t kill you, Lyall, it doesn’t mean I won’t hurt you. I will—and I will take great pleasure in it.”

“Rune,” I whispered, slowly turning to the side to better see him—and all the other sorcerers surrounding us.

Fucking hell, how did we get to this point again? Because I had enraged sorcerers on my left, Rune and Lyall, followed by a small army on the right, and ahead was Maera with four shifted wolves beside her, watching us, waiting…

“There’s no need to attack anyone,” I said, my mouth dry as a desert. “We can sit down and we can talk. Weneedto talk—calmly, all of us.”

Lyall and Rune didn’t move an inch, the tips of their swords still touching, silver on gold.

For a second there, the entire forest held its breath with us.

Then Lyall said, “Until next time,bastard.” He had never said that word with more hatred than he did now.

He’d never moved faster—thatI’dseen—than when he turned around and sheathed his sword, and his red cape moved all about him like a living thing rushing to shield him.

His soldiers stepped to the sides to make way for him, then moved in perfect formation backward to shield his back while they kept their eyes on us and their swords raised still.

They were leaving.

My God, Lyall was leaving, and even though a part of me thought I should try to stop him, get him to sit down andtalkabout the curse and the Unseelie heir, I bit my tongue and let them walk away, retreat deeper into the forest until they were nothing but shadows in the distance.

Rune didn’t move. Maera didn’t move. The sorcerers didn’t back off until we barely saw them anymore.

Over.It was over.

Suddenly Rune turned around, sword in one hand and shadows in the other, his arms around me, eyes on the sorcerers still watching us in silence. I resisted the urge to grab his arms and fall against his chest for a moment longer until we were sure that nobody was going to attack again.

Nobody did.

Instead, a sharp intake of breath had us all looking at the sorceress who’d been knocked out cold by my magic before. She’d been on the ground still, behind Maera and the wolves. When they stepped aside, we saw her struggling to sit up, breathing heavily,loudly,a hand to her chest as she blinked her eyes and looked around, completely disoriented.

Nobody rushed to her aid. Nobody spoke at all while she caught her breath, and finally turned toward us.

Her eyes locked on mine. We both froze for a good moment, as if we were suddenly one. Connected.

Her thin lips moved, and barely any voice left her, but I heard the words as if they’d popped right into my head: “Your time is running out.”

Rune was there.

My back was to his chest, and his arm was across my torso because he still hadn’t let go of his sword.

He was there, his face next to mine, his lips right over my ear.

“I’m sorry, Wildcat. I’m sorry I couldn’t come to you sooner,” he whispered under his breath, barely moving his lips, over and over again—until the woman stopped coughing, struggling for air.