Chapter Twenty-Eight
MASON
KIE’S PROTECTING HER. I can’t fathom why, but he is.
He knows how dangerous delysum is. It’s the whole fucking reason we’re on this death wish of a mission in the first place. He’s been begging Queen Gitta to let him meet with Zaha for years, really since the day of his father’s death.
King Malcolm was poisoned with delysum less than a year after I was brought to the capital. Only a few months, really.
It’s prohibited inside the faerie kingdom, and the cultivation and harvesting of the wildflower is a capital offense. The human was in the forest. She was obviously looking for it. Kie should be eager to know why.
She may be a human, but she isn’t to be underestimated. We don’t know her intentions. I don’t know her intentions . If she makes a move to hurt Kie, I’ll rip out her throat with my bare fucking teeth.
I don’t trust her, and I don’t understand why Kie’s protecting her.
He should’ve been digging into her the second she mentioned it, questioning what she knows and what she’s after. They were alone for hours before I met up with them. He had plenty of time to do so, and I can’t fathom why he didn’t.
I’ve known something was up with her from the first moment I laid eyes on her, but I never considered it would be worth looking into. Clearly, it is. I want to know what the fuck a human is doing here and why the fuck she’s asking about delysum.
I listen to her footfalls as she trails behind Kie and me. She’s not escaping, and I silently monitor her every movement to ensure it. We aren’t covering her tracks, but we’ll be in the troll lands soon enough.
It’s hard to concentrate, the pulsating pain in my ribcage distracting, but I manage to remain focused. Mostly. A shifter landed a deep bite on my ribcage while I was fighting alongside Kie, and every damn shifter I encountered in the hours afterward went straight for the wound. By the time I finally caught up with Kie and the human, it felt like fire, and I can honestly say it doesn’t feel much better now.
It’ll heal quickly, though, even with Kie’s shitty stitching. He never paid much attention in our medical classes, the young prince much too busy flirting with the noble ladies to listen to what our instructor had to say.
Queen Gitta eventually attempted to isolate Kie's studies, but he refused to show up if there were no women around. My ribcage is paying the price of his distractions.
I rest my forehead against the base of Kie’s neck, struggling to breathe through the pain. Kie put a thick layer of ointment on my cuts and wrapped them tightly so the smell of my blood isn’t too strong, but we need to put ample distance between us and the area where I collapsed.
The shifters will be all over it soon enough.
The human lags behind, and Kie slows his pace so she can catch up.
I don’t like what’s happening between them. I don’t know what it is, but I don’t like it.
If I weren’t in excruciating pain right now, I’d be demanding she tell me everything she knows. I don’t understand why Kie isn’t, and I resist the urge to wrap my hands around his throat and choke him while we walk.
“Just a few more miles,” Kie whispers, his voice low so the human doesn’t hear.
I nod, forcing my legs to keep moving.
Left.
Right.
Left.
It’s a simple enough pattern, one I never thought I’d struggle so much to complete. My toes drag against the ground with each step, even with Kie supporting almost all of my weight. I need sleep.
My body will heal while I rest, and by this time tomorrow, I hope to be in better shape.
I’m excited to see the human’s face light up with horror when she realizes how fast shifters heal. I want to listen to her heart race in panic as she internally acknowledges how small and weak her body is compared to mine.
She doesn’t seem to know much about anything, which leads me to believe she’s relatively new to our realm. It only makes her curiosity about delysum more suspicious. What does a human woman who’s only been here for, at most, a couple of months know about delysum? What use does she have for it?
“I need to pee,” Abby—no, the human. I refuse to use her name and get attached—says, her timid voice cutting through the silence.
Kie pauses, and I tighten my grip on his shoulders before straightening my spine and pushing off his back. My knees threaten to give out, but I refuse to show weakness as I turn toward the human.
She’s staring at Kie, pointedly avoiding looking at me.
Her fidgeting hands tell me she notices my stare, though. She’s scared of my interest in what she knows and who she is, and she’s doing a poor job of hiding it. There’s no way Kie doesn’t see that.
“Go,” Kie urges.
The human gulps, her throat bobbing, before she turns to walk off.
“No,” I say, stopping her. “Here.”
She’s lost the right to the illusion of privacy.
Kie places a hand on my shoulder, and I shrug him off. I won’t let his softness toward the human affect my decisions. Being small and cute doesn’t equal being harmless.
King Malcolm once trusted a small, cute woman, and that earned him death. He brought a mistress and her daughter into his home, ignoring all the warnings, and it cost him his life.
The human draws in a shaky breath, her gaze darting between me and Kie. She doesn’t know whom to listen to. She’s more frightened of me, but she’s feeling confident in my weakened state. I’m going to make her regret that confidence.
“Go,” Kie tells her, ignoring my decision to keep her close.
She continues to glance between Kie and me, her lip pulled between her teeth, before she spins and takes off into the woods. I listen, ensuring she doesn’t go too far. I don’t care how injured I am. If she tries to run, I’m going to hunt her down.
“You’re being cruel,” Kie says the moment she’s out of sight.
That’s not a concern of mine.
“You’re being weak,” I argue. “She’s asking about delysum, and you’re too busy thinking with your cock to ask why.”
I sway on the balls of my feet, and Kie smoothly wraps his arm around my waist to stabilize me. I have half a mind to nudge him aside, but I’m not sure how long I’ll be able to support my weight without his help.
Already, the edges of my mind are fuzzy, and I’ll be damned if I pass out and give him the opportunity to carry me. He’d never let me hear the end of it, and upon our return to the capital, I’m sure it’ll only take hours for him to spread gossip about it.
“She’s frightened, and she has no survival instinct,” Kie says. “I don’t think she knows anything. She’s not some trained killer, or in any way equipped for this realm.”
The human pees, and I listen.
“She knows something ,” I argue. “Otherwise, she wouldn’t be asking about it.”
Kie doesn’t immediately respond, probably because he knows I’m right. Her question may have seemed innocent enough, and she’s doing a good job playing the role of a scared, confused woman, but I know with absolute certainty that she’s hiding something from us.
“Delysum kills magic,” I quietly remind him. “It killed your father.”
Kie knows this, knows how serious it is, and I don’t understand how he can be so casual about it.
“Why are you protecting her?” I ask.
Kie shakes his head, and a long silence stretches between us before he mumbles, “I don’t know. I feel bad for her, and I’m just trying not to make this trip any harder than it already is. She’s been through enough.”
That’s not a good answer.
The human finishes relieving herself before returning. A small part of me is disappointed that she doesn’t try to run away, and I wonder if she made any attempts while I was gone. I’d ask Kie, but I have a feeling he wouldn’t tell me if she did.
Kie releases my waist as she appears, probably thinking he’s doing it for my benefit. I don’t care if she sees me leaning against him. She just spent the past three hours watching me practically hang off his back. There’s no hiding just how injured I am.
I singlehandedly fought and killed seven shifters. I’m not ashamed of my wounds.
I wrap my arms around Kie’s shoulders and drop most of my weight onto his back as we continue walking. We should only be a few hours from the troll lands.
I debate taking this time to question the human, but I want to be in a better physical state when I do. I don’t want to overlook something she says or let a minor detail slip through the cracks. Kie will be no help, so it’s up to me to figure out what the fuck is going on.
We only make it another hour before stopping to rest.
The human practically collapses onto the ground, and I lean against a nearby tree while Kie sets up our sleeping mat and overhead. We’ll keep this stop quick. We don’t have time to waste.
Kie turns to me once he finishes setting up the sleeping area.
“Here you are.” He smiles, patting the mat.
I glare at him, annoyed with how much enjoyment he’s getting out of this, before stumbling forward and lying down. The mat is surprisingly comfortable, and I carefully adjust until I find a position that doesn’t pull the sutures on my arm or torso.
After a moment’s hesitation, I sit up and yank off my shirt.
Kie stares at the human, his head cocked slightly to the side as he watches her lie across the ground and rest her head on her backpack. She doesn’t look comfortable, but that’s not my problem. Sleep is important, and it’s on her for not taking that into consideration when packing.
She doesn’t have nearly as much stamina as we do, and we’re not going easy on her. She’s got to be operating off pure adrenaline at this point, and it’s only a matter of time before it runs out.
Despite knowing I shouldn’t, a pang of guilt works its way down my spine.
Kie ventures off into the forest. He doesn’t say where he’s going, but I assume it’s to relieve himself. We’ve limited our food and water intake to slow our digestive systems, but we can’t stop it entirely.
I stare at the covering above my head, thankful for the shadow it casts over me, before turning to evaluate my side.
Kie truly did a shit job stitching me up, and I can’t help but glare at the black sutures holding my skin together. I’ll be able to remove most of them tomorrow, minus the few holding together the deepest parts of my wound.
Hopefully, that will help with the near-constant itching and pulling.
The human rolls over, drawing my attention. Her mouth is open slightly, and her eyes dart back and forth behind her eyelids. I can’t believe she’s already asleep, and I wonder what she’s dreaming of—probably sinking a knife into my chest. That thought angers me more than it should, and I clench my hands into tight fists before forcing myself to turn away from her.
I shouldn’t be letting her get under my skin. She’s not important enough for that.