Page 51 of Fae Exile

Save one…

I pinched my lips shut to prevent my thoughts from careening in Rush’s direction. It was bad enough I was heading his way, I wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of daydreaming about him too—even if he’d never know it.

“Your nose is scrunched up in that cute way you do when you’re worrying about something,” Xeno said with a look over his shoulder at me. “What is it?”

“Don’t you mean, what is itnot? That list’ll be shorter.”

Another snort. “Yeah, give me the short list. Let’s work through it.”

According to Xeno and the many talks we’d enjoyed in Nightguard, there wasn’t any problem we couldn’t figure out together.

I suspected this was the one time that prediction of his would fail.

Concealing a wince as Bolt stumbled over a tree root and jostled my healing heart, I sighed in resignation. “Nothing unexpected. I still think it’s totally tail-flick crazy to be heading back to Embermere when we barely just got out of there, and sobarelyit’s not even a little bit funny. We’ve spent the last several weeks putting as much distance between us and that horrible place as possible. And now we’re heading back? For real, X, have I lost my damn mind?”

“Well, it was bound to happen eventually.”

I gaped at his back, still bare but for smeared umbrac, his shoulder muscles thick, appealing cords, until he barked a deep laugh—so foreign to this nightmarish place, and yet so welcome.

Tsking, I couldn’t resist a tinge of a smile. “Seriously, though … the bitch made it blatantly clear she outpowered and outmaneuvered me in a million different ways.”

We trailed perhaps twenty feet behind Finnian and walked maybe about the same in front of Roan and Pru, who were talking together. Reed wove in and out of the forest to either side of us, watching equally for predators and easy prey. No one was far enough away to ensure privacy, but none appeared to be paying attention to our conversation.

“She’s got so much magic that all she’s gotta do is snap her fingers and she can freeze anyone so they can’t move.” Brows arched and looking up at me, Xeno slowed till he reached my side, then kept pace. “She could literally hold you in place while she orders your head sliced off and not even have to stop having her tea and damn cookies.”

“If she has that much control over you, over anybody, then we can’t go back.”

I harrumphed.

“What?” he asked. “You’re doing that thing where you move your lips back and forth. What aren’t you telling me?”

The man knew me too well.

Again, I sighed. “At the end there, I could move even when I was under her thrall.”

“Then why do you say it like it’s not a good thing?”

My own brows rose. “Is it a good thing?”

“Well, fuck yeah it is. Of course it is. Anything you can do to pay her back for all she did to you?—”

“And to you and Saffron.”

“Don’t worry about us.”

It was my turn to scoff. “As if I wouldn’t. In fact, this is a good time to tell you I really want you to take Saffron back to Nightguard and keep him there.”

“You mean, keepmethere.”

“If you want to look at it that way.”

“It’s how you mean it.”

I didn’t respond, staring up ahead instead. The sun was dipping lower.

His fingers slid from the horse’s shoulder to my calf. “We’ve already been over this.”

I sucked in a deep breath and let it out in a whoosh. “I know we have, but, X, you two have to go, you just have to. The first thing she’ll do is try to get her hands on you just to get to me, and this time she’ll kill you, I know she will.”

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