Page 147 of Court of the Fae Princes

“But what?” I ask, my voice raw with my pain.

He hesitates. “Maybe she saw the ways we were broken and had no desire to be with broken men.”

“Cobar…?” How can he say that? Are we really that bad?

He closes his eyes and rests back against the wall. “Would you want to marry us?”

My entire chest feels so heavy it’s hard to draw in breath. “Yes, I would marry any of us, broken or not. The cocks might be a bit of a problem, but otherwise, you’re not an ugly lot.”

To my surprise, his eyes open, and he laughs. “I could tuck it back for you.”

I lean beside him, so our shoulders touch. “You’d make a lovely woman.”

His head rests on my shoulder. “You would make a hideous one.”

It’s my turn to laugh, but the silence steals room in my heart once more. “Maybe we’ll never know, but I don’t think it was us. Maybe Cassia just meant what she said. She needed more time.”

He’s quiet, but then he says, “She hadn’t had an easy life. Maybe trust doesn’t come easily to her.”

“And she doesn’t like the fae to begin with,” I add.

He shivers and curls in tighter next to me. “We’ll see her again, right?”

Even now, our mate has our hearts. “Right,” I lie.

A sudden shift in the air makes the hairs on my arm stand up. Beside me, Cobar stiffens. Fuck. What’s happening now?

I don’t know, but someone is coming for us.

TEN

Cassia

“Fuck on a stick,” I mutter to myself as we round a bend in the road and come face-to-face with a tangled web of trees. Literally. Their branches look like a very tangled spider web. The damn things are so woven together that I can’t imagine a bunny getting through no less two women on horseback.

“There’s no path here,” Lady Nova says.

No shit.

She leans over her horse with an easy grace I envy. Her horse seems like part of her, like her sword. Throughout the last day, not only has Lady Nova been teaching me how to fight with a sword, she’s been teaching me how to use magic. And seeing how much I suck in comparison to her has led me to noticing all the little things about her that just seem fluid and easy. Like the way she leans over her horse, her long body stretched out, her blonde hair hanging in a braid over her shoulder. She looks like a fae warrioress.

How in the hell was I the one Prince Sulien made this deal with when there are fae like Lady Nova around?

“What do you think?” I prod, looking between her and the mess in front of us.

She takes a long moment to answer, and then a smile curls her lips. Not a happy smile. Kind of like the smile I’m sure she gets before she removes someone’s head. “There’s magic afoot.”

Magic afoot? I swear, I repeat everything this woman says in my head and try to figure out how it makes any sense before I ask a stupid follow up question, but it still doesn’t help. I thought with time I’d figure her out more, but that’s been a big fat wrong way of thinking.

A breeze blows through the woods, and I shiver, curling deeper into my jacket. Looking overhead, I study the gray sky. Halfway through the day, everything had changed. It’d grown darker and colder, something I was hoping wasn’t a sign of trouble to come.

Regardless of signs or not, we need to get moving. Lady Nova might be able to sit here all day, but I’m the one haunted by terrible nightmares and a gnawing feeling in my gut that just won’t go away. I need to save the princes, as quickly as possible, and set things right.

“Lady Nova,” I murmur gently, “are you sure we’re on the right path? I don’t see a way to the House of Death here.”

She glances toward me, brow raised. “No, this is the right path.”

I blink stupidly, then decide the hell with it. “Then lead on, oh brave leader.”

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