17. Chapter 17
Owain
The schick of steel sliding against steel cut through the fading light.
I should’ve heard them coming. More than forty men and horses were loud.
The rumble of hooves, the creak of leather, the ringing of armor.
Any other day I would have. But the moment my lips had found hers, the world had simply ceased to exist beyond the warm press of her mouth and the feel of her skin beneath me, in the molten pull running through my veins that felt vast and primal and unshakable.
I’d missed every sign because something had snapped into place.
Even now, with my pulse still roaring and steel glinting through the broken doorway, I could feel a certainty so ruthless it left no room for argument.
The pressure that had built within me since I’d woken up that first time to meet her eyes had released into incandescent certainty.
Today, a piece of my soul had honed into a sharp point and driven itself out of my chest to anchor itself irrevocably to her.
That feral, worshipful piece of my soul understood that she was meant for me. Something precious, something to provide for, to protect, to claim.
Mine.
My teeth edged toward a snarl before I caught myself.
I lifted my head slowly, the taste of her still on my tongue, the newborn thing between us burning within me.
Annoyance stirred at the audacity of their intrusion on such an intimate moment.
It hadn’t yet grown into rage, but it was close, simmering beneath my skin as I met the eyes of the last man I’d expected to see.
That the bloody royal family of Darreth had found themselves in the borderlands between Larethia and Gelida set every alarm bell in my head ringing.
Nisien questioned me first. “Have you seriously set three kingdoms on edge to meet your lover in the middle of nowhere?” he asked, voice low, likely so the women wouldn’t overhear him interrogating me.
“Nice to see you too, arseholes.” I bristled. But I knew better than to react strongly with the mad king nearby, even if he was—sort of—my friend. “No,” I clarified with forced calm, while slowly lifting the hem of my borrowed tunic. “I’ve been recovering.”
Even in the dimming light, the stitches Lunette had used to keep me together were plain to see.
The dark, sideways, lopsided lines in the shape of an X were still ringed with mottled yellow and purple bruising.
It hurt terribly, but my body seemed to have forgotten that earlier in the heat of the moment—just like my mind kept straying back to her now.
Lunette was the most powerful distraction I’d ever come across. If I hadn’t known she was Fae, I might’ve suspected she was a siren.
Emrys studied the wound for a long second, lifting one eyebrow. “Doesn’t seem that bad.”
Coming from Emrys, that didn’t mean much. His curse kept him alive beyond what should’ve been possible. That was why he looked like a human pincushion.
Nisien, his twin, whacked him across the stomach with the flat of his blade for the comment. Typical of them.
“My insides were on the outside a week ago. She even put my damn ribs back together,” I snapped. “I’d be dead without her.”
“She can do that?” Emrys asked.
The gleam of avarice in his eyes made my spine go rigid. I’d seen that look on men’s faces before they did something reckless out of fear. Their mother had died not long after they were born. He was probably terrified the same would happen with Isca.
The irony settled over me like cold water. Emrys was the most powerful mage alive—nearly unkillable. The only living person who might actually be capable of ending him was a petite, red-haired woman currently sitting outside on a mossy log, completely unaware of it.
Still, I’d die before I let him take Luna unwillingly. My shadows stirred at the thought, testing the limits of my skin, eager to be unleashed.
The brothers noticed.
I braced myself to send my magic out to defend against an attack, for Emrys’s damned temper to rip the roof off the cabin or send his magic snapping toward mine.
Instead, they smirked.
I expected this from ever-charming Nisien. Yet this measured, almost amused version of Emrys unsettled me more than his rages ever had. He should’ve been huffing and puffing, violence barely controlled with every heartbeat, not…this.
Isca was clearly very good for him.
I shifted on my feet, trying to bleed off some of the agitation coiling in my gut. I trusted Isca to handle this situation delicately, but I hated how the truth of who I was had unfolded.
“Why are you here?” I asked, steel threading my voice.
“We have an alliance, you ungrateful shit,” Emrys growled. Back on familiar ground. “The Assembly made a move. We responded.”
“…Thank you,” I managed. I should’ve been thankful that they’d reached the same conclusion I had about the raid. “But why bring Isca?”
Emrys looked like a man who’d long ago stopped fighting the inevitable. “When you find your mate, you’ll see how hard it is to leave them behind.”
The words hit harder than they should have.
After the last time Isca hadn’t been at his side—a tale that ended in him slaughtering an entire battalion of Gelidian rebels single-handedly—I believed him.
Nisien pushed off the wall. “When we heard about the attack on your caravan, Emrys insisted on escorting our party to Tir Gelida himself. Isca wanted to see Princess Anwen before the baby comes.”
That pulled me fully back into the conversation. “So you’re going to Tir Gelida for the alliance?”
“Yes,” Nisien said simply. But something about the way he said it, maybe the slight lift in his voice, made me think he was excited about spending time with his kingdom’s greatest enemy.
Nisien had always been strange.
Emrys bared his teeth. “Because you failed to show up. My wife’s plan for peace requires the princess to have a suitor.”
Unfortunately, my instincts didn’t care about nuance.
He was delivering good news, but they saw teeth and took it as a challenge.
Relief should have been crashing through me at the prospect of not having to go to Tir-Gelida—possibly ever.
Yet, the primal, very male part of me demanded I remove every obstacle between me and Lunette—including him.
I could give Emrys the fight he’d been itching for.
He’d frightened her, and that was more than reason enough to make him bleed. I’d have to—
What in all bloody Avanfell am I thinking?
A bit of clarity sliced through the irrational surge of violence. Either I was feverish again or I’d begun to lose my fucking mind.
Maybe both.
Whatever this was, it felt like a new instinct I had to contend with. It wasn’t like the violence I constantly kept restrained under layers of decorum and duty. This was wilder. Everything within me was reaching for the nearest threat because it couldn’t reach her.
Was this something related to protective Nocthel instincts I’d previously ignored?
I was on the brink of losing the battle against my baser impulses when Emrys spoke again. “The majority of your men made it back to Tir Larethia alive. Your general Allard sent word immediately following the attack.”
For a heartbeat, the words didn’t land. My pulse thundered too loudly, the command to fight still snarling at the edges of my mind. Then Allard registered.
“Camrick…” I said hoarsely. “He’s here?”
Emrys grunted and hooked a gauntleted thumb toward the clearing beyond the splintered doorframe.
Relief punched through the worst of my bloodlust. The good news didn’t erase my enthusiasm for murder, but it did loosen its grip, leaving me with the bizarre realization that the Beast of Darreth was actively trying to calm me down. Cursed gods, how the tables had turned.
As the phantom heat of the bloodlust fully receded, the cold reality of my exhaustion set in.
A tremor ran through my hands. I locked my fingers together, forcing the magic back into my chest. Cam and most of my men were alive.
That mercy was heady—and dangerous. I had no idea what Berian, or the court, would demand in return for another supposed failure.
If I didn’t change the subject, I’d storm outside to see the men for myself immediately. But that would only disrupt Isca performing her gentle diplomacy with Lunette. Fuck. I was not looking forward to facing Luna as a prince.
I hoped she’d understand that I’d done it to protect her. Hoped she’d forgive me.
“How’d you find me?” I asked.
“Found the corpses of two mercenaries, felt the residual magic on both,” Nisien answered. “Then Emrys accidentally broke a ward—thought it was the Assembly’s—and we followed the trail here.”
Luna wouldn’t be happy about that. “I hope you’re going to charge the wards on the way out!”
Emrys started, “I don’t know ho—”
“You can bloody well try!”
“Given your pique,” Nisien said, looking for all the world like he was savoring the lethal animosity between Emrys and me, “I venture she has something to do with those too?”
“Yes!” I snapped.
Nisien had the grace to look impressed.
I recounted the morning’s fight with the mercenaries and what they’d said about the ring and their ties to the Assembly.
Emrys’s curse pulsed in his eyes with visible, enraged energy. He had more reasons to hate the Assembly than I did. They’d used him as a weapon for years and had tried to trick him into starting a war with Gelida after they’d kidnapped Isca.
I untied the makeshift sack I’d created from the mercenary’s tunic from around my belt and held it out. “Either an artificer has come up with a new technique, or the Assembly’s gotten its hands on a few artifacts.”
Emrys snatched the bundle from the air before Nisien could get hold of it. He carefully unfolded the cloth. His eyes widened, and he recoiled at the sight of the ring.
He quickly handed the cloth-wrapped bundle back to me. “Do you have someone to inspect that?”