Page 41 of Fae Reckoning

Ivar blinked languidly, then shrugged. “I ride him. If that makes him mine, then sure.”

His affectation was too heavy handed. Damn, he actually cared for the creature—and fully expected me to use that affection as a weapon against him.

I grunted. “I’m not like her. I’d never hurt an innocent creature to get you to talk.”

The earlier cold of his eyes burned away in a sudden flash of heat. “Yet you sliced him open. He can barely walk.”

“And I regret that.” I glanced at the animal, who whined as he tried to lean all his weight into one side of his body. “Deeply. But you were guiding him to trample Elowyn, and I couldn’t allow that. You must have known that.”

When he didn’t say anything, I asked, “What are you even doing here? Why’d you follow us?”

He pressed his lips together.

“To gather info the queen can use against us and then report back to her?”

His smile was close-lipped and fake. “Yeah. Whatever you think.”

With a final scowl for him, I stalked toward Elowyn. Without turning, she reached a hand out to me. I all but ran to curl myself around her. My arm slid around her waist and tugged her close as she and a goblin examined Xeno’s wings.

Without moving her focus from Xeno, she said, “Rush, this is Edsel. Edsel, Rush.” Finally, she looked up at me, her face softening into a smile. “Edsel is Pru’s granddoody. He’s the healer who helped me after I got out of the queen’s doorway.” She shuddered at the intensity of the memory.

I vowed to murder the queen all over again. No death would be sufficient for her. No end equal to all the pain she’d caused.

“Pru?” I asked distractedly, before remembering. Of course: Elowyn’s goblin attendant.

Edsel was already glowering at me.

“Where is she?” I asked in what I hoped was a smooth attempt to fix my lapse. It wasn’t as if nobles were in the habit of asking their goblins their names…

Elowyn leaned into my side and … did she sniff me? I lowered my head for her lips. But she turned hers in the direction where Pru was, presumably.

“She’s over there. Helping with the fae who were in the cabin when it caved in. She’s watching Saff for me too. I needed a little break.”

My entire body stiffened. “The cabin caved in? Why?”

Elowyn craned her neck upward until the black dragon was in her sights. “Guess.”

I sighed, my shoulders tightening. “Is everyone alright?”

“Workin’ on it,” Edsel muttered, then told Xeno, “Spread ’em a bit wider.”

Xeno opened his wings to their fullest extent. El’s breath hitched; I immediately understood why. The membranes of Xeno’s wings were as much scar as they were wing.

“What happened to him?” I asked in shock, wondering how I could be surprised anymore at the torment this world dished out at every turn.

“Umbracs,” Elowyn hissed bitterly. “The fuckers tried to kill him. But he’s way too strong to take down. Isn’t that right, X?”

The mate bond inside me reared possessively at her obvious affection for another male, even though I could take no objection to how good he’d been to her. For his part, Xeno only grunted a dragonly grumble and pulled his wings tight to his body.

When he turned to face us, Elowyn asked Edsel, “So? Can you help him?”

The goblin frowned ferociously, rubbing both hands along his stubby, short hair that stood straight up. He scrunched his face in consideration, accentuating a deep scar denting the bride of his nose. “He’s already had healing done, and fine work of it too.”

“That would be Finnian,” Elowyn said.

“Where is Finnian?” I asked. “I haven’t seen him.”

Dragon-Xeno might have … whimpered?

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