Page 54 of Last Ride of the Umbra Fae

“Who we were before won’t matter if you will have me for who I’ll try to be from here forward.”

This was him trying? He had been hours from handing me over to Fang. Even if the woman behind that desk hadn’t told me where he was, all I would have had to do was follow his thread of betrayal and the faint wailing sound of the Eternal stone. Its cries only grew the closer we got.

I went into a stance, dagger at eye level, and kept my shadows lurking in my grip.

I saw the ring dangling against his chest, the one I’d given to him the night I’d decided to share a piece of myself with a reckless cowboy who had been on his way to stealing my heart, so I went for his.

He whipped his lasso around my waist, but I caught it pulling him forward. I tried to cut the rope with my dagger, realizing the bond we shared wouldn’t allow it.

Ryder tsked as he closed the space between us. “It cannot be done so easily.” I growled as he blocked every attempt. “We don’t have time for this; there are bigger things at stake here,” he said.

He somehow wrapped the lasso around my arms and yanked me toward him. With my arms pinned, he held a firm, warm grip on my sides. The subtle drag of his thumbs along my flesh fluttered my heart. Damn him.

He searched my face, finding that flicker of desire still burning for him.

“Gods-damn, woman. Your essence is everywhere, and I cannot escape you even if I tried. Your scent is in the wind, and your touch remains an imprint on my tarnished heart.”

“Go to hell,” I said.

He grinned. “Only if you sit beside me.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Fang’s satisfied glare enamored at the sight of me. It quaked down my spine sending my upper lip twitching into a snarl. I’d seen him before. Though he was clearly a Water Fae, something else stuck out. My mind reeled, trying to place where our eyes had met before as the two men stared at me from two distances—wanting me in different ways.

One with a loss of logic because his cock and heart were hand in hand, and the other with flat-out greed. I saw the look in Fang’s eyes; he wanted me dead.

I was done being seen as something to kill.

Ryder loosened his grip, and the lasso fell to the ground in a plume of smoke. I narrowed my eyes on Fang, taking a few steps forward, observing the contrast between his blue-tipped ears and terrible crimson shirt. “Blue is a shitty color on you,” I scoffed, feeling a flutter of darkness curl up my wrist.

“That’s what I said.” Ryder’s voice interrupted my following thoughts.

“I’d shut the fuck up if I were you,” I snapped.

The weapons on the wall behind Fang rattled from the water leaking through the cracks of its broken surface, gathering over pikes and axes. Some appeared to have been rusted over time; they must have belonged to beasts not of this world. No man or fae could hold such a weapon and remain standing.

“Still wild and free. It’s been a very long time since I’ve seen you,little shadow. But now that you’re all grown up, you remind me less of a shadow and more of adeath comet.” Fang’s words swept a chill down my spine as my vision blurred, tunneling into a swarm of memories of the masked man Pa had traded with upon our shores.

“Little shadow. Is that your name? Here, have this…”

“We trusted you,” I whispered, shaking my head in disbelief with vengeance swirling around my hands. The more I lookedinto those eyes, the better I recalled the man who had mimicked my nickname the moment he’d heard Pa say it. The man who had made me feel we were a spectacle every time his boats had docked our shores. He hadn’t been there to trade with the Umbra Fae, he had come to scope us out.

Before I could spit out another word, his power ofAriforged a hold around the weapons. They broke from the shackles of the wall, shooting straight for us.

Ryder turned, pushing my body behind him as he summoned his power in a forceful gale. His wind parted the weapons, which speared past us into rubble. As I felt the rush of metal whiz by, the call of the Eternal stone was a hiss sending goosebumps along my arms.

The urgency to end Fang curled around my fists, but the call of the stone was louder.

This is not my fight.

The words sent an understanding, knowing the fight belonged to the man who stood behind me in what was once the doorway.

Pa strode forward, releasing a tremor under the ground that rippled like a whip, sending the stones beneath our feet rolling through the expanse of the room, splitting marble in its wake until a large boulder flung up and clipped Fang on the side.

The Umbra Fae knew how to make an entrance that showed the city this wouldn’t be tolerated any longer. Take it for what it was. The stone didn’t belong here, and neither did any of us.

“Look who it is. The devil himself.” Fang grinned, wiping the blood off his face.

“How does it feel to be so close to death?” Pa said, arching a salt-and-pepper brow. He plucked the toothpick from his mouth and flicked it away.

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