Page 3 of Fragile Oath

I ran a hand over my face, exhaustion beginning to edge in past the adrenaline. With it came memories from last night, rushing back with a crushing intensity.

The smell of rosemary and lavender.The way her skin tasted of honey and the sweet tang of her sweat.

Perfect.

Mine.

Her voice, barely more than a whisper in my mouth as I tried to swallow each word, breathing her in, savoring her.

Yours. Always yours.

Had she meant it when she said it? Or was she already having second thoughts? Was that her way of giving me a last reassurance before she said goodbye?

“Dav.” Gallagher’s voice caught my attention.

I followed his concerned hazel gaze to the floor, where crimson drops were falling from my clenched fist to splash against the pale wood floor.

I opened my hand, but averted my eyes before I glimpsed Galina’s ring covered in my blood. The ring I had walked by countless times in the family vaults, picturing it on her elegant hand in spite of myself.

The ring I had told myself she would never wear by choice. And she hadn’t, when it came down to it.

“We need to question the castle,” I said, letting the ring clatter onto her vanity. I tried to infuse a nonchalance into my tone but heard myself fall short.

“Absolutely,” Gal said as he reached out to grab my injured hand. “Just might not want to add more bloodstains to your mother’s pristine floors before we do.”

I barely felt the skin stitch itself back together as Gallagher used his faewoo-woo powersto heal the tiny wound in only a few seconds. Generally, he refused to lend his ability to injuries this small, so he must have been feeling spectacularly sorry for me.

“Isn’t her uncle on his way to Chridhe?” he asked when he was finished. “Would she try to meet him there? Or head back to the tunnels?”

“That’s a fair point,” my uncle acknowledged. “Either way, we can’t let anyone know she’s missing. Not when she’s already been a target.”

A sharp exhale escaped my lips, something close to a laugh – one entirely bereft of humor. Had Galina considered that when she left? That she was putting herself in danger? Or had her visceral need to run as far from me as possible outweighed any fear of rebels?

“Of course,” I agreed. “We’ll need to be subtle, gear the questioning toward Tavish and see what else we can glean.”

“Did you hear that, Gwyn?” Gal arched an eyebrow at his twin. “That means you can’t help.”

For a rare change, Gwyn didn’t laugh at her brother’s teasing. She only glowered, shaking back her auburn waves like an irritable lion.

“I wouldn’t have helped anyway,” she spat.

“Gwynnie—” Gallagher cut in, his eyes moving to me.

“No,” she cut him off. “You’re all acting like this is some great mystery, like she didn’t up and leave her last fiancé on exactly no notice, disappearing from a well-guarded castle in the middle of the night with a plan she concocted. This isn’t exactly new behavior for her, is it?”

Silence fell, a charged hush thicker than the blood pooling on the polished floor. A thought dawned on me, one that had me questioning everything about Galina and my role in her departure from Socair.

Alexei might have been an utter arseworm, but had he loved her, in his stodgy Socairan way?

Had he felt like this when he discovered her gone? Like someone had kicked him in the stomach and all of the air had been sucked from his lungs?

“We don’t know the circumstances of her departure from Socair,” Gallagher finally responded, a flat note to his tone that made me snap my eyes to him.

He looked away, and Gwyn cut in before I could question him on it.

“No, we don’t,” she agreed. “And we never will, because she wouldn’t bloody well tell us.”

“What about the missing guards?” I couldn’t help but add.

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