Page 53 of Bloodguard

“Yes,” I answer quietly.Some place that’s the equivalent of you.

“Please,” I add when she keeps still. “There’s something I’ve waited far too long to do…”

chapter 20

Maeve

Leith permits me to guide him. In truth, we look ridiculous. Me in my night garments and he in breeches and a dark-blue blanket draped over his shoulders. His right arm sways leisurely against his side, despite how his fingers fist around the lock of Sullivan’s hair.

I didn’t understand what Leith wanted until he bid me move aside the bottles of herbs on the top shelf. When my fingers felt the soft strands of hair that he’d hidden, I knew.

That gladiator, the one Leith killed the day I first saw him, must have been his friend. I wasn’t certain why he cut that man’s hair. I didn’t know Leith, and in many ways, I still don’t know him. Yet even then, I didn’t see Leith’s actions as coldhearted. Already, I saw more. And I was right.

What he must have felt ending his friend’s life is unfathomable. I fight back tears at the thought. The tears, should any fall, belong to him. I won’t steal a single drop. I don’t deserve to.

While Leith slept, Father and Sonu added another coat of gold fire hornet venom to the rope that surrounds the cottage. They did a good job of covering this extra line of defense with forest debris, except the fresh, sharp scent pricks my nose and I can’t fight my sneeze.

“Are you all right?” Leith asks. “Don’t tell me the elf healer is getting a cold.” His voice remains heavy from sleep and likely a great deal more pain.

“Elves don’t get colds.” I take in a deep breath, welcoming the crisp aroma of dark-green leaves, damp bark and stone, and lush, moist soil.

His focus skips from me to the planter spilling with blood orange lilies, perhaps thinking their silky black pollen stirred my sneeze. I breathe in the tangy petals, and not just to free my nose from the lingering stench of the venom, but because they also overpower the smell of the serpent oil soaking the stump they rest on. While pretty, blood orange lilies are also practical.

I pause and lift the planter so that Leith sees the match secured to the base. “If you’re ever in trouble, strike it hard against the stump. It will catch fire and surround the perimeter of the cottage in a protective wall of flames.”

He laughs without humor. “I noticed the rope when I first arrived, but the match and the stump are pure genius.” He cocks an eyebrow. “I take it this is your way of thwarting my escape?”

“As if anything could keep you here.”

It will help protect Leith, but the cottage wasn’t warded for him.

He eyes the cottage carefully. “That’s prairie mint covering every inch of those exterior walls.”

“It is,” I confirm.

He nods. “It holds a ton of water. It’d keep whoever’s in there safe from the flames.”

At the mention of flames, I shudder, and Leith’s sharp gaze traces over me. “Those defenses aren’t for me, though, are they?” he asks. “They’re for you.”

“Yes.”

We resume walking.

“After the assassination attempt and fire at the castle…Father didn’t think it safe for us to be underfoot,” I explain.

“Why?”

I expel a deep breath. “Because my father didn’t kill my grandmother, which means the real killer is still out there, Leith.”

He pauses and reassesses the grounds as if seeing them for the first time. “Do you have a contingent of guards? Can they be trusted?” He eyes the path that leads to the main house. “This keep doesn’t have high enough walls or anything protecting it from an attack from the forest side.”

“Yes, well, it’s better than living within the castle walls, where an enemy could be lurking around any corner,” I mutter.

“Is that why you moved?” he asks, lifting a long branch out of the way for me.

I duck under. “Partially.” I don’t bother to add that the castle was just filled with too many memories of my grandmother and Papa. “Visiting again soon for the council meetings will be interesting.”

When Leith doesn’t comment, I continue, “Uncle Vitor suggested I start attending when I announced my previous engagement. I hope the invitation still stands even though my fiancé met an untimely demise.”

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