Chapter 16
Raine
Friends? Frelina just wanted to be friends?
No fucking way.
Raine muttered to himself as he dragged his tired bastard ass up the ship’s stairs and across the deck, and stomped over two other ships to reach the one where Loche and Iviry planned to host their training today.
His mutters turned to sighs when it proved quite challenging to get through. Not just because each ship was packed with Fae and humans and the odd shifter and half-Fae dispersed amongst them, but because the air was so damn heavy with tension. And not the good kind.
Raine flashed his teeth when a Fae beside him shoved a human out of the way to get closer to the makeshift training ring.
Thankfully, the Fae realized who he was, but even so, Raine forced himself through the walls in the Fae’s mind and snarled If you don’t treat the humans with respect, I’ll encourage you to take a long fucking swim in the sea.
With a white face, the Fae apologized to the human, who was oblivious to what had just gone down, and smirked as if it were he who had somehow instilled terror in the two-foot-taller male.
Raine just clicked his tongue, his gaze flying to the sky for a moment. He caught a few other pairs of eyes as he barged through the crowd, watching their gazes drop and their feet fly backward, dragging others with them, and realized he must look as fucking annoyed as he felt.
He didn’t have patience for this type of tension in his usual state. And now? He was sober. Sober and feeling so fucking stupid and guilty and… Emotions crawled under his skin until he felt like ripping it off his flesh.
What the fuck had he been doing?
Raine winced as Solana’s voice rang in his mind.
You’ve been an absolute idiot.
She would call him out on it. That’s just who she was. She wouldn’t care that Raine felt like this because he’d fallen for someone else—someone who wasn’t her. Solana wouldn’t stand for how he’d treated Frelina.
Neither would he, a few centuries ago. He might have always had a weak spot for beautiful females, but he’d always treated them well.
Frelina, on the other hand? The one person who’d been able to stand him.
Who’d stuck by his side as he grumbled and drank and talked so much shit he’d almost believed it himself…
He’d not done right by her. And now he was pretty damn sure it was too late.
Maybe if you get your shit together and become her friend, you can salvage some of it.
Raine huffed as the image of Solana waving a hand in his face, her small body radiating power and authority even as he towered over her, filled his mind, and for the fucking millionth time, his hand brushed his pocket for the flask that used to live there.
But he came up empty. As he always would from now on, because he was done fleeing.
If Elessia and Frelina, Kerym and Merrick and Iviry and Loche, could face this world and the horrors it threw their way… then so could fucking he. He might be a bastard, but he wasn’t a fucking coward.
As Raine walked the final steps to the circle where a mooring rope had been tied to seal off the training ring, tension coiled even tighter around him, the feeling of it in the air pounding as harshly as the sails did when they switched directions.
Raine lifted his eyes, letting them sweep around the people gathered there.
In almost every face, eyes were slitted and lips pursed, and every person’s hands twitched toward swords and daggers and throwing stars and whatever else these people had armed themselves with.
The breaths rushing around him were short—sharp inhales and exhales, betraying how coiled muscles restricted air—how pulses raced through seemingly relaxed limbs.
Fuck, if war between these people didn’t break out today, it would be a damn miracle.
Raine had seen it before. Many times.
Even within Fae, there were different groups. And trying to force companies of soldiers to collaborate too quickly without the trust needed to stand together against an enemy? It was dangerous. That’s what it was.
He readied himself as he watched Loche duck under the rope with Iviry swiftly following, and when their guards didn’t immediately shadow them, Raine ground his teeth and shoved himself through a group of Fae to enter the ring as well.
“You need to be fucking careful,” he hissed through his teeth, not bothering with any pleasantries as he reached the two leaders.
“People are scared out here. Scared and worried and… I swear they are out for blood. They don’t know who to blame for how they’re feeling, and the easiest ones to target? You two!”
Raine shot a dark look at the guards who were finally making their way under the rope, then grabbed one of the Fae and one of Loche’s masked men by their collars and continued his whisper-shouted tirade.
“You don’t leave them out of your sight.
These are your leaders, soldiers. Treat them like it.
Treat them like danger lurks at every corner, because it fucking does. ”
“Raine,” Loche warned, his tone too fucking cool for the pressure building around them.
“Regent,” Raine shot back, his gaze flying out across the circle of people around them—the circle that had begun closing in, murmurs and sharp exchanges rising as people shoved each other, the space getting even more limited.
“What are you thinking?” Raine directed the question to Iviry, who’d motioned for one of her guards. “This is a death wish! You fucking know better, Iviry.”
The redhead gave him a lethal smile, although he knew her well enough to catch the glimmer of worry in her blue eyes. “We don’t have a choice, mind-bender. It’s just getting worse. We need to show them that we stand together.”
He was about to scoff that the five feet between them didn’t exactly scream unity when the most beautiful laughter split the air, and Raine’s jaw dropped as Frelina was lifted into the ring by another of Iviry’s massive guards.
A blond Fae male with a too-fucking-wide smile for what was going on, and…
Why did he keep throwing that toothy grin Frelina’s way?
Raine clenched his hands into fists. “What is she doing here?”
Frelina wasn’t a fighter. Like her sister, she didn’t want to harm anyone. But here she was with a fucking sword hanging over her back like some kind of warrior princess.
A sexy warrior princess whom he couldn’t stop staring at.
“She’s in our council,” Iviry said as Frelina laughed again at something the guard said. “She wanted to help today, and since we need every person we can spare…”
Iviry is your leader.
Iviry is your leader.
He had to repeat the words to himself not to openly challenge her.
This was no place for a damn five-foot-six half-Fae with innocent eyes and hair that curled so beautifully where it cut off at her slender neck.
“Are we training today or what?” Frelina called out, and Raine swore the air stilled for a moment.
But the half-Fae female didn’t appear to notice as she grabbed the blond Fae’s hand and pulled him with her into the ring.
“May we get us started?” Frelina bowed—actually bowed to Loche and Iviry—as she asked the question. “Frecco has offered to show me how to use a sword.”
A defiant growl started in Raine’s core and built through his gut, but just as it was about to reach his chest, when he would have sprinted forward and knocked the idiot smiling Frecco out of the way, Loche casually strolled up to his side and placed a hand on his shoulder.
“She knows what she’s doing,” Loche mumbled as Iviry responded to Frelina, following with a statement to the crowd that didn’t sink into Raine’s mind.
“The fuck she—” Raine started, but then Frelina’s eyes passed his, lingering for but a second.
But that second was enough. Raine gripped Loche’s shoulder to stop his quivering body from releasing like an arrow nocked to a bow when Frecco and Frelina lined up opposite each other, Frecco’s massive sword glittering in the early sunlight, like Frelina’s eyes.
She did know what she was doing. Frecco probably had nearly three feet on her, his body triple her size, forcing every pair of eyes around them to realize just how easily he could kill her. But his smile—a sunny and real one—told everyone he wouldn’t even come close.
“Rioner killed both of Frecco’s parents,” Loche breathed as they began circling each other, Frecco shooting Frelina instructions. “Frelina came to us this morning asking if we agreed with her idea. She—”
“I get it,” Raine snarled.
He should probably try to rein in his temper, especially around the leaders for whom he was supposed to help garner support and respect, but how the fuck could he when the girl he…
Fuck, did he love her?
Solana’s laugh warmed his insides.
Of course you do, you dumb bastard.
Raine blinked when Frelina laughed again as Frecco managed to disarm her with one strike of his sword, and he could only watch as the latter picked it up and made another joke that had her throw her head back to get air after the onslaught of giggles shaking her body.
It was as if that laughter swept through the crowd, soothing it, relieving the apprehension that had seeped through the salty air and the sky that wrapped all around them across the sea.
She really knew what she was doing. Frelina was showing the people around them what trust meant, as she purposely turned her back on the armed Frecco while saying something to Iviry.
She was showing them that while he had every right to harm her as retribution for what her uncle had done to his parents, he wouldn’t.
She was giving the people hope—exactly like her sister had before.
The warmth that had spread in Raine’s chest surged into his limbs, through his bloodstream, into his mind, until he couldn’t help but send Frelina one thought.
Can I go next?
Her eyes flew his way, and the way she danced away from Frecco’s sword—the way her smile lit up the fucking world as the sun decided to shine on her face in just that moment—took every ounce of air from his lungs.
Please, he added.
His knees nearly buckled when she nodded and sent a Just give me a few minutes back.
“You’re so fucked,” Loche chuckled, and Raine forced his eyes to the regent’s gray ones, struggling to focus as he listened to Frelina respond to Frecco’s jokes while the metal clang of their swords sliced through the remaining tension around them—every strike hitting something within the crowd until the harsh murmurs were replaced by low conversation, discussions of who would train with whom.
Thankfully Raine didn’t have to try to find any words—as his mind had apparently already gone—when Iviry came up to them, reaching out a slender hand to the regent, who stared at it for a moment, looking about as clever as a dead fish, before he caught himself and let her drag him to the center, beside Frelina and Frecco, who were finally taking a break.
Raine didn’t let himself hesitate as he followed the leaders.
You’re fucked as well, he thought when Loche lined up before Iviry, hesitating as he drew his sword.
But he made himself not say it out loud—the poor idiots needed whatever wins they could get right now—and as the crowd focused on them and Iviry grinned, a wild, wicked grin that made Loche’s lips lift into a mirroring one as they elegantly clashed together, a flicker of hope settled in Raine’s chest.
Not just for the people they were trying to unite. No, as he turned to Frelina and her cheeks flushed pink at whatever she saw in his face, the ember of hope took root, settling somewhere deep inside him.
Bowing before the golden-brown-haired beauty, he ignored Frecco when he asked what Raine was doing and reached out a hand toward Frelina as if he were asking her to dance, not duel.
“Will you do me the extraordinary honor of beating me in a fight?” Raine asked when Frelina stared at him, her chest still heaving from her earlier practice.
What are you doing? she asked in his mind, her eyes trailing over his still-bent back and the hand he wouldn’t drop until hers slipped into it.
Raine rounded his eyes innocently. “I am being your friend.”
Why do you keep saying that like it’s a threat? She sliced her own eyes back.
Because it was…
If it was the last thing he fucking did, it would be not to be her friend, but to be everything else.
But he didn’t say that; instead, he shuffled forward, holding himself in a bow until he was able to grab her hand himself. “Come on, sunshine. Throw me down in this ring like I know you want to.”
The words came out rougher than he meant, and Raine had to steel his spine not to react when Frecco cleared his throat, amusement filling the sound.
Frelina went entirely crimson as she hissed “Get up,” but while her face was stern as she pulled him with her to one of the free spots—many Fae and humans had now gathered to practice their skills—her hand didn’t release his when they halted in the place she’d chosen.
Raine wasn’t about to fucking let go, either, so he just grinned at her until she realized what they were doing, then dropped his hand and stepped back, shaking her head.
“Should we get started?” Raine wiggled his fingers over his curved blades.
Frelina hummed as she planted her feet, holding her own sword with two hands. Yes. But… sunshine?
You needed a new nickname. Raine spun his blades in his hands, somehow feeling more connected to them, to the air, to the world around him as those golden eyes held his captive.
She frowned. But why sunshine?
I’ll tell you when you get these swords out of my hands.
Raine bounced his brows up and down as she stepped forward, knowing very well that might never happen—not unless he allowed her to win.
Still, he could tell that fueled something within her, and he couldn’t help but be fucking proud of the force she attacked him with.
Again and again.
Until they were both drenched with sweat.