Page 24

Sav

T he human was definitely going to die here.

A simple dryad, one of the easiest creatures to evade, had trapped him.

They rarely bothered folk outside of their mating cycle.

Still, even young fae were almost never ensnared by such basic magic.

If Jack were to have any chance of surviving in Faerie, I’d need to teach him some of the basic rules.

He groaned, and I looked over, narrowing my eyes. “You’re still alive then.”

He pressed a hand to his head, and the other ran down his body, cupping his pants.

“It’s still there.”

“Did you check?” He asked in a rasping voice.

How close had the dryad come to implanting her seed in him? What a liability he was turning out to be. How had this species survived so long? “You did, the last two times you woke up. Are you going to stay awake this time, or should I call on Kaspar to give us a ride?”

Jack’s eyelids fluttered, and he turned to look at me.

Dark purple had begun to mottle his throat and collarbone, and I was sure if I lifted his shirt, I would find bruising there as well.

My brows flattened even as the tension in my chest eased each time he woke.

Our kinds didn’t mix because of this weakness.

Their short lifespans and lack of common sense were incompatible with a superior species.

I laid a hand on his chest, feeling its slow rise and fall. Something uncomfortable twisted in my gut. I’d been worried about him. More than I should have been. True, dryads rarely killed their victims. They only wanted to propagate their kind, but humans were fragile.

“No more rides from your boyfriend,” he whispered, eyes closing again. In a few moments, soft snores slid through his lips, and I relaxed.

He’d slipped in and out of consciousness for more than an hour, but his eyes weren’t turning brown, and his heart beat steadily.

He would recover. I licked my lips, glancing at my hand as it moved with the rise and fall of his chest before scanning the area.

I couldn’t wait for Jack to wake again. When we crossed the border into Winter, it would be frigid at mid-day, but at night, it would be deadly.

Standing and stalking into the tree line, but not letting Jack out of sight, I found two large maple leaves and, after testing several branches, pulled out a pair that appeared sturdy enough to hold his weight and dragged them back.

I set my bag on the ground and tugged out a spool of skink worm thread.

It was my last spool, a final remnant of my old life, and one of the few things I’d been able to take with me when I left Faerie.

Pulling a long needle out of the tufted top of the spool, I strung it along the leaves, looping them when I reached a branch and doubling back across the makeshift cot.

When I’d strung enough thread to hold the leaves in place between two sturdy branches, I bit the end of the thread, wrapping it securely around the spool—silently mourning the small bit remaining—and tied it off at the end.

“Jack. Get up.”

He mumbled something incoherent and began snoring again. He must have ingested more of the dryad’s sap than I first thought. With no toad’s blood to counteract its effects, though, my best option was to get him to the winter court as soon as possible. Their healer would have herbs to aid him.

I hefted him up, dragged him onto the stretcher, bent his knees, and pulled.

He was heavy, even for me. After several hours dragging him over mossy stones and soft grass, I paused, wiping a hand across my forehead and peered through the foliage and trunks, searching for any sign that we were near the winter kingdom.

My feet stung and my back ached, but the oppressive canopy of Summer’s flora was giving way to taller, thinner trees and finally—finally—I stepped over the line into Winter and soft flurries of snow dusted my cheeks.

Stopping to lean against the white-striped bark of a birch tree, I exhaled a sigh.

The sun had dipped low, and I swallowed as I realized we wouldn’t make it to the castle before dark at this pace.

The short skirt I was still wearing would do nothing to protect against the elements, but it wasn’t me I feared for in the cold.

Jack would be an issue if we didn’t get indoors soon.

Lifting his stretcher once more, I sped up, knees lifted higher as snow blanketed the ground and my feet grew numb.

A chill settled over my bones as the weather dipped from cold to freezing, and I glanced back to see Jack’s mouth turning blue, frigid air puffing between his lips.

A bitter wind picked up, whipping flurries of snow around my face, and my stomach dipped.

Hefting the branches under each arm, I jogged, sinking nearly to my knees in the snow.

Pain radiated up the soles of my feet and, more worryingly, I no longer felt my toes.

Daggers speared my lungs with each breath and my frozen fingers slipped more than once, but I kept going. There was no turning back now.

“Ho there!”

I spun around, dropping my stretcher, and gasped out a sob of relief. “Help us,” I pleaded, sinking down into the snow.