Page 59 of The Vanishing Throne

I make a sound of disgust. ‘They don’t need protection from anything. For god’s sake,they’rethe ones who kill humans. They’re probably in there plotting our demise, figuring out a way to get around their truce. They can’t be trusted.’

‘You really don’t know, do you?’ she says with sudden understanding. ‘They were hunted, too.’

I start in surprise. ‘Excuse me?’

‘It’s a pledge we make before the Wild Hunt.’ Kiaran’s voice rings out from behind us.

I turn. Kiaran is on the stone path between the stocks ofseilgflùr, a risky place to be. If he so much as touches the plant, the thistle will burn his skin. He’s dressed in black trousers and a crisp white shirt open at the collar.

Kiaran’s eyes lock with mine. It’s such an intimate thing, that look. ‘Marbhaidh mi dhuibh uile,’ he says softly. ‘I shall kill them all.’

As if he knows. As if he’s said it before.

Beside me, Catherine stiffens. I watch her hand slip just beneath her sleeve to sink her fingernails there. I flinch.

‘Forgive my rudeness,’ she says. ‘I believe I’m needed elsewhere.’ Before I can protest, Catherine strides away. As she passes Kiaran, she steps between the stocks of thistle, deliberately putting as much distance between them as possible. She disappears down the passage we came in through.

‘What did you do to Catherine?’ I ask. A thought occurs to me. ‘Don’t tell me she remembers when you accidentally faestruck her in the park.’

His lips twitch. Kiaran’s almost-smile; just seeing it makes my heart leap. ‘That remains our secret.’

‘Then why was she looking at you like she wishes she had the means and opportunity to murder you?’

‘My kind slaughtered almost everyone she knew,’ he says. ‘She doesn’t trust me.’

‘Well, you did just threaten to maim her husband.’

I know I shouldn’t trust Kiaran either. Not after everything he’s done. But the truth is, I can’t remember the single defining moment when I decided to trust Kiaran. It just … happened. Like the way I came to care so much for him just happened. Somewhere between our hunts and our kills and our kisses, he left his mark on my bones.

Now I see why Kadamach moved heaven and earth to find you.

I don’t tell Kiaran that it was the memories of usI treasured most in Lonnrach’s prison. That I would spend hours trying to remember every detail of his kiss, every feeling, every word, for proof that I wasn’t just some discarded pet. That it all meant nothing.

I turn away. It’s safer not to look at him. I’m already feeling too many things I wish I didn’t. ‘You said it was a pledgewemake. Does that mean you did, too?’

Suddenly, he’s close. I can feel the heat of his body, how his muscles are tensed like a predator ready to spring. His breath is at my neck, lips close enough to brush the skin there. ‘I was the one who made the pledge first.’

I don’t dare move. It’s too much when he gets like this, equal parts seductive and dangerous.

In an instinctive move, my hand inches to my belt, where I keep my blade.Damn. I left it in my room. ‘When?’

‘When the first Wild Hunt pillaged the land and we killed everything in our path.’ I’m about to pull away, but Kiaran stops me, his fingers grasping mine. ‘Who do you think brought the pixie city to ruin?’ His lips are by my ear, a kiss pressed to the tender curve of my neck. I shudder. ‘I did.’

I jerk away from him. Damn it all, I forgot again.

Kiaran was once Kadamach, a ruthless killer who had been among the worst of the fae. It was his love for another Falconer that changed him, made him side with humans. But that doesn’t mean he’s good or harmless. After all, everyone thinks badgers are harmless right before they bite you.

‘You killed Derrick’s family,’ I say flatly.

‘His family, his friends.’ Kiaran’s eyes glow in the dim lightfrom the field, so startlingly vivid and uncanny. ‘Almost everyone he loved.’

Good god. He speaks about slaughter so nonchalantly, as if he’s telling me how to use a new weapon. How little he seems to care sparks the anger in me.

‘Why?’

‘Why?’ Kiaran sets hisjaw. ‘Why do you sleep, or feel, or do any of the things humans do without thinking twice? I killed them because to me it was like breathing.’ He tries to step closer as if to touch me, but I back the hell away. His hand falls to his side. ‘It’s what I was made for.’

I can imagine him like that so easily. It’s the way he gets when we hunt together, as if there’s nothing else in the world he loves more than a battle. It’s an exhale of a sword thrust, an inhale of a blade through sinew and bone– the rhythm of a kill.

---