Page 73 of The Cursed Kingdom

KIE’S PROTECTING HER. I can’t fathom why, but he is.

He knows how dangerous delysum is. It’s the whole fucking reason we’re on this death wish of a mission in the first place. He’s been begging Queen Gitta to let him meet with Zaha for years, really since the day of his father’s death.

King Malcolm was poisoned with delysum less than a year after I was brought to the capital. Only a few months, really.

It’s prohibited inside the faerie kingdom, and the cultivation and harvesting of the wildflower is a capital offense. The human was in the forest. She was obviously looking for it. Kie should be eager to know why.

She may be a human, but she isn’t to be underestimated. We don’t know her intentions.Idon’t know her intentions.If she makes a move to hurt Kie, I’ll rip out her throat with my bare fucking teeth.

I don’t trust her, and I don’t understand why Kie’s protecting her.

He should’ve been digging into her the second she mentioned it, questioning what she knows and what she’s after.They were alone for hours before I met up with them. He had plenty of time to do so, and I can’t fathom why he didn’t.

I’ve known something was up with her from the first moment I laid eyes on her, but I never considered it would be worth looking into. Clearly, it is. I want to know what the fuck a human is doing here and why the fuck she’s asking about delysum.

I listen to her footfalls as she trails behind Kie and me. She’s not escaping, and I silently monitor her every movement to ensure it. We aren’t covering her tracks, but we’ll be in the troll lands soon enough.

It’s hard to concentrate, the pulsating pain in my ribcage distracting, but I manage to remain focused. Mostly. A shifter landed a deep bite on my ribcage while I was fighting alongside Kie, and every damn shifter I encountered in the hours afterward went straight for the wound. By the time I finally caught up with Kie and the human, it felt like fire, and I can honestly say it doesn’t feel much better now.

It’ll heal quickly, though, even with Kie’s shitty stitching. He never paid much attention in our medical classes, the young prince much too busy flirting with the noble ladies to listen to what our instructor had to say.

Queen Gitta eventually attempted to isolate Kie's studies, but he refused to show up if there were no women around. My ribcage is paying the price of his distractions.

I rest my forehead against the base of Kie’s neck, struggling to breathe through the pain. Kie put a thick layer of ointment on my cuts and wrapped them tightly so the smell of my blood isn’t too strong, but we need to put ample distance between us and the area where I collapsed.

The shifters will be all over it soon enough.

The human lags behind, and Kie slows his pace so she can catch up.

I don’t like what’s happening between them. I don’t know what it is, but I don’t like it.

If I weren’t in excruciating pain right now, I’d be demanding she tell me everything she knows. I don’t understand why Kie isn’t, and I resist the urge to wrap my hands around his throat and choke him while we walk.

“Just a few more miles,” Kie whispers, his voice low so the human doesn’t hear.

I nod, forcing my legs to keep moving.

Left.

Right.

Left.

It’s a simple enough pattern, one I never thought I’d struggle so much to complete. My toes drag against the ground with each step, even with Kie supporting almost all of my weight. I need sleep.

My body will heal while I rest, and by this time tomorrow, I hope to be in better shape.

I’m excited to see the human’s face light up with horror when she realizes how fast shifters heal. I want to listen to her heart race in panic as she internally acknowledges how small and weak her body is compared to mine.

She doesn’t seem to know much about anything, which leads me to believe she’s relatively new to our realm. It only makes her curiosity about delysum more suspicious. What does a human woman who’s only been here for, at most, a couple of months know about delysum? What use does she have for it?

“I need to pee,” Abby—no,the human.I refuse to use her name and get attached—says, her timid voice cutting through the silence.

Kie pauses, and I tighten my grip on his shoulders before straightening my spine and pushing off his back. My kneesthreaten to give out, but I refuse to show weakness as I turn toward the human.

She’s staring at Kie, pointedly avoiding looking at me.

Her fidgeting hands tell me she notices my stare, though. She’s scared of my interest in what she knows and who she is, and she’s doing a poor job of hiding it. There’s no way Kie doesn’t see that.

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