Page 56 of The Last Heir of Elsewhere

To my surprise, Scion waved me off as if there were no issues. “It’s another week until the full moon. I’m sure you can handle yourself, you just killed an old one.”

I gaped at him.

It wasn’t even that I disagreed entirely, it was that Scion had never once been so blasé about anything. “To be perfectly clear, you’re saying that even though I wasn’t allowed to join the army in case I got a taste for it; when I spent a week every month caged in the castle, and when I was hardly allowed to leave the grounds for the first twenty years of my life,nowyou want me to step into Underneath.”

He didn’t even have the decency to look embarrassed. “Yes. Don’t you want to?”

I bit back a growl. Did I want to make sure my mate was safe? Of course, but I was all too aware that my presence might be more dangerous to her than anything else in that cursed city. If I hadn’t been completely sure that Scion would destroy anything in his path to find Lonnie, it would’ve been different, but as it was, I’d only make things worse for both of them. “What happens if someone recognizes me?”

He cocked his head, looking at my face as if he’d never seen it before. He closed one eye, and frowned. “You look more Seelie than Unseelie…and who knows, perhaps there are a lot of yellow eyes in Underneath.”

I snorted a genuine laugh. “You’ve become quite adept at lying to yourself in these last weeks.”

He scowled, looking far more like himself. “It’s not that.”

“Then what is it?”

He glanced away. “I just know from experience that you won’t be able to stay away for long, anyway. I’d rather stay together.”

I closed my mouth, merely nodding. It was the closest he’d ever come to admitting that we might share the same feelings when it came to our little monster, and that he too was compelled to follow her into the underworld.

I only wished that sentiment wasn’t so literal.

“Fine. We’ll both go.” I let out a short burst of laughter. “With the both of us, your brother and my father, it will be like a fucking family reunion.”

23

LONNIE

ABOARD THE FORESIGHT

In my dream, I pushed the door open, the Fae males walking close behind me. My mother stood at the long wooden counter in the corner of the small kitchen, chopping roots with a long knife. Immediately, I felt safer.

“Mother,” I began, but didn’t get a chance to finish.

“Rhiannon,” the frightening man interrupted me. “I’m glad to see you’re well.”

My mother dropped her knife at the sound of his deep voice and turned with a gasp.

Her face was pale and heart-shaped like mine, her hair a shade brighter red and tied back in a long braid. She barely looked at the second Fae, who stood near the door, all her attention focused on the frightening man. “What are you doing here?”

“Did we not agree to meet?” he said pleasantly.

“Yes, but—” she looked at me, her eyes darting anxiously toward the door. “Lonnie, where’s your sister?”

“Outside,” I said quickly.

“Why don’t you join her.”

The frightening man laughed. “It seems the children aren’t safe outside if they are running into strangers at every turn.”

My mother bristled. “They’re fine. You are the problem here.”

“Is that any way to greet an old friend?”

Mother snatched her knife off the ground. She brandished it at the commander. “I’ll greet you with this unless you tell me what you’re doing here. We were not supposed to meet for months.”

“Plans change,” he said, honey dripping from his voice. “I need you to do something for me.”

---