Page 108 of Bound By Roses

‘Who else could it be?’

I don’t have an answer, only more concerns. Quinn seeing Evan in the veil was a death sentence, so what does it mean if he sees two people in the veil?

‘Thank you.’

His head tilts slightly to one side.‘For what?’

‘For not doing something stupid like going in there after her.’

He laughs, but there’s a sadness to it.‘Is it that obvious?’

‘I wouldn’t have blamed you. If it were me and I saw my mom… I don’t know. Aside from what the wraith showed me, I’ve only ever seen one picture of her.’He already knows the details of her death and how there isn’t even a grave marker for her in Lunae. At least, not anywhere I’ve seen.‘All I know is that I can’t do this without you.’

‘Is that what you’re worried about?’I lose myself in his amber eyes and see the concern there. If he were human right now, I know he’d be cupping my cheek with his hand and pulling me closer. ‘I’m not going anywhere.’

That’s only part of my anxieties tonight.‘I haven’t heard from Ty. Are you sure he made it?’

A ripple runs through Quinn’s body and I can’t tell if he’s cold or if it has something to do with whatever happened when they were out there. There’s a breeze tonight, but I can’t imagine he can feel much of it with the thick fur coating his body. Even with just him pressed up against me, I’m more than comfortable.

‘Yes,’he says after a brief moment of deliberation.‘I may not have witnessed it, but I have every confidence that he did.’

‘But what if they—’

He cuts me off quickly before I can even give the thought life.‘He’s alive. All this means is that he can’t shift. We knew hearing from him right away would be unlikely, so let’s not worry about it now.’

‘Easy for you to say,’I mutter.

He rests his massive head in my lap and sighs when I run my fingers through the thick hairs on his head and neck.‘Nothing about this is easy. We have enough to worry about without borrowing from tomorrow’s maybes. For now, the best thing we can do is sleep.’

I laugh once, short and sharp. A bird startles and takes to the sky from the palm tree above us.‘You think I’ll be able to sleep tonight? If Ty shifts—’

‘He won’t shift tonight.’There’s a certainty to his words that weren’t there before, and then I realize why. He’d only said it was unlikely for my benefit. So that I wouldn’t think too hard about what tonight really means for that boy we sent back to Lunae. He won’t be able to shift tonight because he’s probably being interrogated by Imelda as we speak. She’ll want all the details of the attack, and until her Guardians return to confirm that the other two men were in fact killed by something in the forest, she won’t trust a word out of his mouth.

Now I’m the one shivering, so Quinn moves so that more of his body is against mine.‘He’ll be fine,’he tells me because he knows I need to hear it.

‘What if we sent him to his death?’

‘He was dead the moment he got here. At least this gives him a chance.’

The momentJadebrought him here. Jade, who has since gone missing again. That’s another thing I don’t want to think about. Instead, I make myself as comfortable as possible and let my eyes fall closed. I focus on the soothing sounds of the ocean and the softness of Quinn’s breathing. Because of what we did together, we’re one step closer to ending this.

Tomorrow, the real work begins.

Quinn was right. As far as I can tell, Ty didn’t shift last night and I send a silent prayer to the Gods that Imelda didn’t just kill him on sight. It’s almost a good thing that we know Void is planningto massacre his people. If anything, they’ll likely just put Ty in line for the slaughter.

I have to force that thought way back down where it belongs. There’s no telling how long we have, but the Void that’s been haunting my dreams still sounds young. Surely he’ll want to be at full strength before he unleashes an army of wraiths and throws the world into darkness.

But, then again, I’ve seen how powerful he is—and that was when he was a child. He’s aged years in a matter of months. For all we know, that boy has already become a man.

I busy myself by preparing for the best case scenario. Since sun up, I’ve erected twenty-five new shelters and increased the size of my garden threefold. With the help of some of Rosewood’s farmers—and Terranous’ magic—we’re well on our way to producing enough food to feed not only our people, but everyone.

The wolves have been hunting, too. Some of the sirens are still a bit put off by meat and plants that weren’t gathered from the sea, but the promise of a full belly is an easy motivator.

While I’ve been focused on preparing for Lunae’s people, Quinn has been focused on ours. He’s anxious too, even if he won’t admit it, and his first action this morning after shifting was to reach for his sword. I’ve been trying not to watch because nothing twists my stomach more than seeing him spar with two people at once, but from the glimpses I have caught, he might very well have been going easy on them before this.

With the high afternoon sun streaming down on him, he all but glistens from the layer of sweat coating his upper body. Even more so than the swords he holds in each hand. He’s magnificent, and if he wasn’t busy preparing for a possible war, I might just have to send my vines after him and drag him back to our tower for an entirely different kind of workout.

If anything’s going to take my mind off things, it’sthat.

---