Chapter 13 #2
“Thank you.” I skimmed my right hand down to his and curled my fingers around it, pressing them gently into his palm, feeling the coolness of his skin against mine as he stared at me and my gaze drifted to Morden again.
I started heading after him and then stopped, glancing back at my fae king.
“Did you see a male around six-foot-three? Short blond hair, pale blue eyes. Medium build. He might have been with my parents. He’s our beta… my cousin.”
“Chase,” Kaeleron said and shook his head. “I saw no sign of him.”
I swallowed to wet my dry throat as I brought the next person into my mind and my chest tightened. “Everlee. Did you see her? You’d easily recognise her. She’s around my age and has long red hair. Green eyes.”
And exactly the sort of person Lucas would hurt to get to me. He knew what Everlee meant to me.
Kaeleron’s handsome face took on a sombre edge as he slowly shook his head again, as he dealt a blow to me that felt as if I had been punched right in the heart.
He stroked his fingers across my cheek, gaze soft on mine, but filled with a silent promise that if anything had happened to them, every wolf in Lucas’s pack would pay for it. “I will return later to scout again and will remain longer. I am sure they are fine, Saphi.”
I wasn’t so sure, and I couldn’t bring myself to dare to hope that they were, because I wasn’t sure I would survive the blow if I let myself believe they were fine and found out they were dead because of me.
Lucas was doing this to make me come back to him, and even though he was the one who had taken my pack—my family—hostage and were threatening them, I was the one who felt responsible for their situation and the danger they were in.
“Do you wish to move closer to the Ryland Pack now?”
I nodded in answer to that softly spoken question and rallied my courage, because this was only the first step in the plan we had come up with this morning. The rest of it was undecided.
Kaeleron linked his fingers with mine and gently pulled me into his arms, and into a teleport with him.
I didn’t feel the brief kiss of cold black mist against my skin as he held me, sheltering me from it with his arms and the tender emotions behind the embrace that touched me on a deep level, soothing my agitated soul.
The need to reach my pack right this moment was strong, my wolf side restless as I thought of them all in danger, at the mercy of Lucas, but the more sensible side of myself, the one that wasn’t ruled by emotion, told me to stick to the plan.
Practice what I had learned in my training at the Shadow Court. Appeal to the Ryland Pack alpha.
And yes, part of me was terrified of seeing Lucas again, of how I might react if I saw my parents in danger, that side of me convinced that I would panic and freeze rather than fight to the death to save them.
I wasn’t that weak little female my pack believed me to be.
I wasn’t made of glass.
I could do this.
The look in Kaeleron’s eyes as he eased back from me told me he believed that too, that he had faith in me and knew I was strong enough to face my fears—my worst enemy—and emerge the victor.
I was strong enough to claim that vengeance I craved.
He dropped a kiss on my forehead in that way of his and then he was gone.
My gaze scanned the spot he had selected, a place I wasn’t familiar with but one that hummed with power.
It was beautiful. The glade was large, the long grass spotted with flowers, and a brook cut through it.
At the far end of it, beyond the towering pines, I caught a glimpse of a waterfall tumbling down a rocky cliff, feeding the river.
The air smelled clean and fresh, laced with dew, and I breathed deep of it, finally feeling that connection with nature that I had been craving from the moment I had left Lucia.
I had the feeling Kaeleron had built this small camp here—the firepit only a ring of stones around a patch of thin grass now—and that he had passed many hours in this spot.
I moved to the nearest tree, brushing my fingers over the fae markings carved into the bark of it.
There was power in those markings, power that made my fingertips tingle.
“Son of a bitch,” Morden growled and something thumped against the ground behind me.
I turned to find Kaeleron looming over him where he lay sprawled out on the grass on his back.
“I told you to keep still.” Kaeleron dusted his hands off and then casually brushed the sleeves of his black tunic down. “I warned you not to fight me.”
“Forgive me if I have trouble trusting you’re not going to teleport us up some mountain and drop me off the top of it,” Morden snapped.
Kaeleron’s black eyebrows rose. “Now that is an idea.”
He lunged for Morden, his grin fiendish.
Morden shifted into a large black wolf and leaped away from him, snarling and gnashing his fangs.
“What happened?” I slowly approached Kaeleron, keeping an eye on Morden as his hackles bristled and he lowered his head, looking as if he might pounce on the fae king.
Kaeleron inspected a small tear in his sleeve, displeasure crossing his handsome face.
“The wolf did not believe I had merely moved you here as agreed and that I intended to do the same to him. We argued. I grew bored and snared him with my shadows. He rather unwisely fought them and the result is what you see here.”
He swept his hand out regally, gesturing to Morden.
The black wolf growled and circled him.
“Morden,” I chastised and his grey eyes flicked to me, and then he snorted and trotted away from both of us.
“Make camp,” Kaeleron snarled at his retreating back. “Saphi and I are going to train.”
Morden looked back at me and gave a subtle nod, and then slunk into the woods, no doubt going to hunt to work off his anger.
“Are we going to train here?” I looked around at the glade that was perfect for it—if it wasn’t for the fact that Morden would come back at some point to start getting the camp set up for us and we would get in his way.
“No.” Kaeleron caught my wrist and tugged me in the direction of the waterfall, his pace brisk and grip tight.
Something was up. Something more than just Morden aggravating him.
He released my arm as we entered another clearing a good distance from camp, where the waterfall plunged into a pool that fed the brook, and unbuttoned his tunic jacket, his motions stiff and his gaze very focused on his work.
“What’s wrong?” Instead of preparing for our training, I closed the distance between us, needing an answer to that question.
His fingers paused on the last button and he slowly looked from it to me, and husked, “Am I really any different to him? I feel no better than that wolf. I intended to use you in my revenge, meant for you to only be a tool to me, one that would be discarded once I had what I wanted—all seelie responsible for what had happened dead.”
I already knew all of that—knew that it had all started out as a game to him, a method of amusing himself while he waited for my purpose to be revealed—but hearing him say it aloud still stung.
I thought about what he had said about making hard choices, how far he would go to protect his court and avenge his parents and save his brother, and I thought about how he had looked at me sometimes when he thought I wasn’t looking.
Looked at me with so much hope but so much pain and regret in his eyes.
Just as he was looking at me now.
As if his happiness hinged upon having me, loving me and having me love him in return, but some bleak part of him believed we wouldn’t end up together.
Believed that he was betraying me even now.
I took his hand and brought it to my face, pressing his palm to it as I brushed a kiss across the heel of it, and savoured how good it felt.
Just this simple, innocent touch was heavenly to me.
I bravely raised my eyes to meet his, and drowned in the softness of them, in the warmth and the love that shone in them, that made my breath catch in my throat.
No male had ever looked at me like that.
Not even my fated mate.
And I was sure I had never looked at a male the way I often found myself looking at Kaeleron.
As if my happiness hinged upon having him, loving him and having him love me in return, and some bleak part of me didn’t believe we would end up together.
Because fate wasn’t that kind to me.
“Kael,” I whispered, desperate for him to chase away this fear I would lose him, to make it disappear and make me believe that we could overcome whatever obstacles came between us to claim that future I wanted with him.
That we didn’t need fate or a mate bond to make us love each other.
He swept me into his arms.
And vanquished those fears with a fierce, bruising kiss.
One that ignited my blood.
My passion.
My need.