Chapter 35
THIRTY-FIVE
ALLERIA
The male fae holds the door open, and I follow Cairn into the room.
It’s larger than I expected, with a table and two chairs in one corner, an armoire made from dark wood, and a bed piled with blankets that look soft even from where I’m standing.
The hearth is cold, wood stacked in the fireplace waiting to be lit, with an armchair to either side.
Heavy curtains are drawn across the window, shutting out the outside world.
I move deeper into the room, only half aware of Cairn speaking to the fae male behind me. My body is still humming with an echo of whatever happened on the hill. The latch clicks, and there’s a crackle in the fireplace. I turn my head as the wood catches flame and frown.
“How did—” My eyes move to Cairn, and I shake my head. “Never mind.”
He passes by me and crosses to the window, pulling one curtain aside an inch and scanning the street below. The firelight catches the sharp angles of his face, the dark marks that trace up his throat.
He looks like exactly what he is. Not human. Fae. And I should be afraid of him. I am afraid of him. But fear has become such a constant companion these past weeks that I barely notice it anymore.
“What was that?” The words spill out before I can stop them.
He doesn’t turn from the window.
“On the hill,” I press, when the silence goes on for too long. “When you called them. I felt it.”
“I know.” He says nothing more than that.
“It … pulled at me.” I can still feel the ghost of it in my chest, a tightness that won’t ease. “My feet moved, and I couldn’t stop them.”
He lets the curtain fall and turns to face me. His expression gives me nothing. His eyes are flat and distant, his mind clearly somewhere else. On the other fae, probably.
“Why?”
The fire pops, a log shifting, making me jump. Cairn just stares at me out of those pale gold eyes.
“Food should be sent up soon, then you should rest.”
“That’s not an answer!”
“No.” His mouth curves, just barely. “It isn’t.”
He turns back to the window. The dismissal is clear. He has no intention of explaining what happened.
I could push harder, try to demand answers, but I know he’ll shut me down with a word or a look. A reminder of exactly how little power I have here. But I’m tired, bone-deep tired, and the thought of fighting with him right now makes my entire body ache.
So, I don’t say anything.
A knock on the door breaks the silence a few minutes later. Cairn strides over to the door, and opens it. The same male fae as earlier is standing in the hallway.
“Everyone is settled. Fiena, our healer, is with the six you brought.”
Cairn nods, and steps into the hallway, then pauses and presses his palm flat against the doorframe. An odd sensation washes over me, the fine hairs on my arms lifting, and I shiver.
“Don’t try to leave. The door is warded.” He doesn’t look back, the door swinging shut behind him.
As soon as he’s gone, my legs give out, and I stumble over to one of the chairs in front of the fire.
The warmth of it washes over me, sinking into muscles I didn’t realize were clenched.
I’ve been holding myself so tight for so long, bracing against one thing after another, and now that I’m finally still, I can feel how much it’s been costing me.
My shoulders ache. My thighs are sore from days of riding. There’s a constant dull throb in my head—from fear, anxiety, stress, and so many other things I can’t even list them.
I close my eyes, lifting one hand to rub at my temple, tip my head back against the headrest, and just … let myself breathe.
In and out.
In and out.
My heartbeat slows. The tension in my jaw starts to ease. The knot between my shoulder blades loosens a little.
It’s the first time I’ve been truly alone since Cairn stole me away in the middle of the night.
At the camp, it felt like there were eyes on me constantly, even when I was alone in the tent.
Riding with Cairn, I was pressed against his back, always aware of him.
The heat of his body. The shift of his muscles when Selveryn changed direction.
The way my arms wrapped around his chest and stayed there, hour after hour.
And before that … I don’t want to think about before that.
But here, in this room, with the fire and the silence and no one watching, I can finally let myself feel how exhausted and emotionally battered I am. How close to the edge I’ve been running.
I let my thoughts drift, unfocused at first. The softness of the chair beneath me.
The way the flames make shadows dance across my closed eyelids.
The distant murmur of voices down the hall.
My own breathing, slow and steady, filling the quiet.
And underneath it all, the strange tightness in my chest that keeps pulling my attention back to it, no matter how much I try to let my mind go blank.
The pressure building in the air as Cairn reached for his magic. The way Therin dropped to one knee, his jaw clenched, every muscle straining. Vel, shaking with the effort of staying upright.
And me …
Stumbling forward before I could catch myself.
It isn’t the first time something strange has happened between us.
His voice in my head. Seeing through his eyes. That flare in my chest during the night when we were tangled together. But the pull on the hill was different. Therin and Vel felt it too. Whatever Cairn was doing, it affected them, too. But they’re fae. His warriors.
I’m not.
So why did I feel it? Does it have something to do with how I keep seeing through his eyes?
That’s the part that really won’t leave me alone. At the Dell and during the attack on the road, I wasn’t watching from a distance. I was inside his head as it was happening.
I felt everything. The weight of the blades in his hands. The spray of blood, hot across his armor. The way his body moved, fluid and precise, cutting through those men like they were nothing.
And coiling low in my stomach … heat. Want. Need.
I wanted him. While watching him kill my own kind.
I. Wanted. Him.
My face burns at the thought, and I press the heels of my hands against my eyes and try to think about anything else.
The village. I’ll think about the village.
This place contradicts everything I’ve grown up believing.
Fae are dangerous. That’s still true. But the rest? Fae must be contained. The preserves exist to protect us. The hunts exist to cull their numbers. Without those things, humanity would be their slaves.
I walked through that village tonight and no one was afraid. There were fae and humans at tables together, laughing and touching. An entire community where everything I’ve been taught doesn’t seem to apply.
It’s making me question what else is wrong. I’ve been questioning it for a while, but today …
Tonight, I watched as three warriors ran toward us, fell to the dirt, and bowed before him. The fae in the inn sank to the floor when he walked in. And it was relief and hope on their faces, not fear.
They touched him so easily. They embraced him, and he let them. The warmth between them was clear. It wasn’t just bowing to their commander, it was more.
I think about the way he touches me. His hand fisting in my hair.
His fingers closing around my wrist. His mouth on my throat, biting down hard enough to leave marks.
Even when I’m melting into him, even when I’m arching up and making sounds I’ll be ashamed of later, there’s always an edge to it.
Anger. Control. Power. A reminder of what I am.
When I watched him with his warriors tonight, the way he let them close, the softness about him with them, something in my chest twisted.
It shouldn’t matter how he treats them versus how he treats me. They’re his people, fae he’s known for longer than I can possibly imagine. I’m his prisoner. A human. The daughter of a king who profits from fae suffering.
But watching the female press her face against his chest and weep, watching how he put his arms around her … I felt it. A sharp, ugly twist beneath my ribs.
What would it be like to have him look at me the same way he looks at them? To treat me gently instead of with anger and violence and mockery?
No, I don’t want him to treat me like that … I want to get away from him. I want to escape. I want to go back to my life.
What life?
The thought catches me off guard. At the palace, I had Nella. I had my chambers, my books, my rides through the royal forest. But who else? Brennan? Wil? They care about me, but there’s always a wall between us—duty and station and the fact that their job is to keep me safe, not be my friends.
My father loves me, I know that, but I’ve always been the youngest, the one who’d rather be in the stables than the sewing room, who doesn’t fit the mold of what a princess should be.
Merina and I love each other, but we’ve never truly understood each other.
And the court … the court has always felt like a performance I was never quite good enough at.
I think about the warriors embracing on the road. The way they held each other, wept openly, and didn’t care who was watching. When was the last time someone touched me like that? Not to adjust my dress or fix my hair. Just … held me. Because they wanted to. Because they needed to.
Nella hugs me sometimes. But that always carries the weight of what we are to each other. Princess and handmaiden. There’s always a line, even when we pretend there isn’t. I’ve been surrounded by people my entire life, and it’s taken until now to realize that I’m lonely.
Do I really want to go back to that? If I do, then why did I stay silent on the road? Why did I stand there and let him slaughter all those people?
I can’t lie to myself any longer.
I don’t want to go back. I don’t want to escape.
And … I’m jealous.
I’m jealous of the fae around Cairn who can reach out to him without worrying about what others will think. Who can touch him without it being about power or control. Who can hold him and be held back. Who belong somewhere, to someone.
The realization should horrify me. Instead, it makes me sad.
How did I get here? How did I get from being terrified of him to wanting him to put his arms around me? Is it because I want him, or because I want what he has? Open affection and warmth. People who love him fiercely.
The door opening pulls me out of my thoughts and my eyes snap open, half-expecting it to be Cairn. It’s not. A human woman steps through the door, carrying a tray.
“Food and tea.” She gives me a bright smile. “If you need anything else, please come downstairs.”
“Thank you.” I don’t tell her that Cairn warded the door so I won’t be able to open it.
She gives me another smile, then leaves me alone again.
I stare at the tray for a long moment before I make myself get up. There’s a bowl of stew, with crusty bread, and a pitcher of hot tea. As soon as the smell reaches me, my stomach wakes up, and I dive into the food like I haven’t eaten in weeks.
Once the bowl is empty and the bread is gone, I return to the chair by the fire, my hands wrapped around the mug of tea, and wonder what is happening with Cairn and the others.
Are they making plans? Talking about things I don’t understand?
Rebuilding connections that were lost when he was captured and collared.
The collars.
I sit upright.
I watched Therin and Vel break the collars on the fae in the wagon. They released all six of them … and never drank a drop of the blood from the guards they were using.
But Cairn drank mine.
He pressed his mouth to the cut on my palm and lapped at the blood. My mind shies away from how I responded to that. That isn’t important right now. What is important is that he drank my blood … and everything strange started happening after.
Seeing through his eyes. His voice in my head. My body responding to his presence. The pull on the hill that dragged me toward him.
Did drinking my blood create this? Did it build some kind of connection? Did he do it on purpose?
I set the cup down, my hands unsteady.
It all fits, doesn’t it? It all started there … with my blood on his lips.