Page 71 of The Path of Blood and Betrayals

All five of us head back to my tent as I gather my daggers and waterskin. Tay grabs his sword, peering down at me as I fasten my hair into a braid.

“The myth says the Furies roost in the mountains?”

Nodding, he points to the sharp rock face, the sides sheared off. “They roost in the highest summit. If the lord is alive, he’ll be there.”

“Then we’ll have to find a path and scale the mountain to find him.”

“And if you find only regurgitated flesh?” Kaden quips, sitting on the log beside my tent, ankles crossed. “Then what?”

“Then you don’t get the water,” I reply, smugly. “And this raid fails. So hopefully, that’s not an option.”

The Coven needs the help. If the Dark Fae are so desperate for water, they’ll be inclined to make sure the raid continues.

Then maybe, just maybe, the Coven will see me as the person I am and not the monster theythinkI am.

“Let’s justFinnickour way through this,” Tay quips, hands held wide, smiling wide.

With the situation so dire, I don’t expect Tay to crack a joke. But when I laugh, I can’t deny how good it feels, how the stress melts away. Wiping away a tear, I sigh. “Did you justFinnickme?”

Of course he’d bring up the bard. He never misses a chance to tease me about my poor choices.

My friend grins, winking. “You do it to meallthe time.”

“I do not.”

Tay raises an eyebrow. “Just last week when the crone wanted help hauling her herbs inside and you agreed, but we had no idea how to harvest them for her.”

I giggle. The herbs had been poisonous and had to be harvested a certain way. We figured it out, but not without Tay healing us.

Kadenglowers from his spot, gripping his sword handle. “Can someone focus and explain what inSeti’s Hellis aFinnick?”

“Wait,” Fee interrupts, holding her hand up high, “the traveling bard? Dark hair, goatee? The one Reid slept with?”

Mouth dropping, I grasp the younger royal’s wrist, tugging him close. “You knewFinnicktoo?”

“Oh, we knew each otherverywell,” he drawls, eyebrow waggling, earning a quick laugh from me. “How do you know him, Max? He’s the type that only likes dangerous beings.”

“Oh, he chose right with Max,” Tay taunts. “I found them together by the cliffs in our Coven. First love and all that.”

“It was not first love.” At least, I don’t think it was. “It was a two-week stint and then we went our separate ways,” I explain, ignoring Kaden’s arched look.

It’s similar to how he looked when the lord thought he could make me submit for him. Dark, angry, full of retribution.

I don’t exactlyhateit.

When I was younger, in a Coven surrounded by Witches who feared me, I was often alone. When the traveling bard came, he performed nightly in the one tavern in the center of the Coven and stayed in the fields. By that time, Tay had found Cully and Nafre had multiple lovers.

I just wanted to feel normal, wanted,desired. Finnick didn’t fear me, didn’t taunt me. He only saw a young woman with a body that craved touch.

It was nothing spectacular. We rushed through movements as I sought release. I wanted lust and passion. I wanted to know how it felt for a man’s lips to be on my body. Finnick gave me that experience.

And once the two weeks were up, he left.

It had crushed me when he left—not because I would miss him. But I would miss the piece of me I was with him.Normal. He wasn’t my first love, but he was the first to give me normalcy, when others only showed me hatred.

Tay looks back at Reid, smiling. “Finnick is what we say when we need to just go with the tide, to trust and follow the path to see what happens. It’s an inside joke of sorts.”

“Very small inside joke.” I pinch my fingers together. “Now if we’re done talking about my previous relationships, I’d like to see if we have a raid to salvage.”