Page 13 of Blood On His Lips

“That’s not a good idea,” Numair said. “If you show up on our doorstep covered in her blood—ah, all that blood—”

Renaud nudged me out of his mind. I landed back in my body and fought the sucking darkness that wanted to keep me under. I needed to be awake when we arrived home.

* * *

The rhythmic rocking of a carriage roused me. I groaned, my body sore, drained. Renaud’s arms held me still, my head tucked under his chin.

“Aerinne,” he murmured. “Your evening hasn’t been boring.”

His shirt was damp, my iron-scented blood mingling with his own smoke and blackberry and arctic ice.

I pushed aside the tatters of the white gown and spread my bloody hand over my side. The wounds were tender but closed, the pain a distant throbbing.

I tensed my muscles experimentally. I’d be able to move well enough, though it would take several days to fully heal.

“This is the second time you’ve sent your healer to me,” I said. “What is the price?”

The carriage pulled to a stop, and Renaud’s arms tightened around me. The door opened, unmaskingexclamations from those gathered outside. Either a scout had sent word ahead, or we’d arrived during a shift change. Likely both.

“You are mine,” he said. “There is no price. Not for this. Not for you. Not even a price paid between lovers.”

I shivered, glad I wasn’t on the receiving end of the threat in his voice as he gazed across the courtyard. He wasn’t done killing, had not yet fully demonstrated the folly of attacking me in open defiance of his claim.

He’d left two warriors alive, so he’d have answers soon. I had enough heart to pity them.

Renaud shifted, stepping carefully out of the carriage while holding me. He descended into the small, dusty courtyard of our town home.

The angry faces of my family surrounded us. Murungaru stood off to the side, lips moving, and I widened my eyes at my Kikuyu cousin in silent command to cancel whatever spell he was about to unleash. He shrugged, and the glimmer of magic dissipated. Warlocks. So reactionary.

“Summon Lord Étienne,” Renaud ordered, tone deep and remote, startling me for a second. It occurred to me how much of himself he’d revealed when we were alone simply by allowing me to read glimpses of his thoughts and feelings in his voice.

I gathered my strength. “Put me down, Prince.” Several pairs of arms reached to take me.

“No.” The muscles under me stiffened.

He gave a hair-raising, courage-curdling hiss, and my people retreated with a quickness. I understood the value of his restraint—next to nonexistent at this point—and dread fed me strength. This could become a bloodbath.

I’d made a mistake in concealing the extent of Renaud’s interest from my extended family. Nora knew, and Baba. Juliette and Numair and Édouard as well, probably. But we’d told no one else anything other than what they might have learned from gossip.

“Everyone calm down,” I said, digging my fingers into his shoulder. “Give him space.”

“She said back the fuck off,” Juliette snapped, pulling a sword and standing in front of us. After a moment, Numair followed suit, lips thinned.

“Is she your hostage, Prince?” one of my cousins called. Smartass.

“She is mine.”

The words, though unremarkable in English or French or Kikuyu, in Everennesse were informed by an almost ritualistic meaning. An inflection of possession, of warning, of madness should a fool wish to test the warrior’s boundaries.

“They need to hear from my own lips that you didn’t try to kill me,” I said carefully in the heavy, crashing silence. “They don’t mean to take me away from you. They’re worried.”

“Am I so poor at killing that if I made the attempt on your life, I would now be here holding you in my arms rather than scattering your ashes on the wind?”

Well, that was an excellent example of how not to soothe the worries of a group of warriors on edge.

Perversely, it did reassure them. The anxious, angry pulse in the air lessened.

Fae.

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