Page 7 of Royal Ransom

She lashed herself to my floundering boat and anchored me solidly in reality again. In the storm my life had become, she was a pillar of cold, calm strength. She cared enough about me to accept a little pain to keep me alive and myself. It was the same promise I’d made her when we got married.

Color rose in her cheeks, and she hid a sheepish smile behind the lid of the to-go cup. Something in my chest relaxed at the sight. She couldn’t be too angry if she was blushing at the thought of what we’d done together.

Tally cleared her throat. “What do you remember? Astrid said you helped her escape Morgana. What happened after that? Where did you go?”

“I don’t know,” I repeated. “I can’t tell you, Tally. I messed up. I made a deal with him—with Knox. If I hadn’t...”

She’d be gone. Her kids would have died too. Did I bring that up as justification for what I’d done? Would it matter? I was sure I’d killed someone. The question was, who and why?

“Terms,” Tally said in a clipped, businesslike tone.

“What?”

“Give me the terms of the deal, Mav. I can’t bail your ass out unless I know what went down. Tell me what happened after we, uh...”

The pink dusting of her cheeks deepened to a lovely shade of rose. She batted my hand away when I tried to stroke a finger along one sweeping cheekbone.

“Don’t distract me,” she muttered. “And I’m still pissed as hell at you! You have no idea what kind of shitshow I’ve been dealing with since you’ve been gone. Abraham and Aurea are both in the slammer, which puts Blood Rose’s future in Astrid’s hands.”

“Astrid?” I echoed. “You have to be joking.”

She pinched the bridge of her nose. “Oh, I wish I was joking. But Astrid was the closest royal from a faerie court. In the event both heads of school were killed or incapacitated, the responsibility fell to the nearest royal who could mediate. That’s Astrid.”

“Why couldn’t Dickhead Reynard do it?” I protested. “She’s just a kid. He’s supposed to be teaching her. This seems like a good way to start prepping her for the role.”

I still didn’t like the idea of my sister putting herself directly in the crosshairs of so many would-be usurpers, but she was determined. I couldn’t argue with her motives. She wanted tohelp Tally’s loyalists, which meant Autumn needed an heir. If not Reynard’s, then Fennec’s.

Normally, the nickname would have made Tally’s lips curl into a chilly little smile. She and I were of similar minds when it came to her ex-fiancé, Fox. He was a pompous, presumptuous bastard, and she was better off not being his promised bride. But the careful blankness she tried to present was more alarming than if she’d sworn at me.

“That’s the problem,” she said quietly. “He can’t.”

“What do you mean, he can’t?”

“Misty Hollow—where he was living?”

“Yeah?”

“Well, it’s come alive and I guess the best way to describe it is that… it attacked its citizens. They had to flee through a portal into winter. Some of them survived and made it here, thanks to Fox, but...”

A leaden weight sank into my stomach. Oh, Goddess. It was here. The day I’d been dreading was here. Duty was going to outweigh the happy life Tally had forged in the Hollow. If Fox was dead or captured, it meant we were all in trouble.

“What happened?” I asked.

She told me.

***

The talk took over an hour, and by the end of it, I wanted to throttle Fox. I’d always known he would be a problem; I just never anticipated it playing out this way. He was supposed to be the expert who swaggered in and out of the Hollow, barking orders, then disappearing in a puff of leaves when the trouble was over. Poppy certainly seemed to regard him as some kind of storybook hero. But the idiot had decided to take a shortcut through winter?

Yes, I knew it wasn’t that simple, and no, I didn’t care. Thelives of our newest guests felt abstract. I didn’t know them, and I didn’t care about them. I would save them if I could, but not at the cost of Tally’s life. Did that make me a selfish bastard? Yeah, probably. I didn’t care. Tally mattered more. Now, Dickhead Reynard had pulled his biggest dick move yet. He’d saddled her with the responsibility of rescuing him. She was going to try, at least. I could see the decision already firm in the line of her jaw. She would shout me down if I told her to stay in the Hollow, where it was safe. No, I couldn’t stop her.

That meant I had to accompany her to save my arrogant asshole of an uncle. I wasn’t looking forward to it. I’d argue for a more conservative approach: make them come to us, fortify Haven Hollow against all comers. They couldn’t keep us under siege forever. Tally would want to do something more direct. It was the cop in her. She wanted the simple solution—punch it, shoot it, or cuff it. But this problem required more finesse and patience than she had at this point.

As I walked down Main Street, I ran through possible safe houses and routes I’d need to secure before the following night. The winds were harsher tonight than they’d been in weeks, raking my hair from the short tail I’d tied it into. The crazy vampire who’d blooded me had chopped my braid off at shoulder length, leaving me with a ragged haircut. I’d cut it even shorter during the rescue attempt at Rupert’s mansion. I was finally getting back to a length I felt comfortable with, but it would take years to grow it back to where I preferred unless I availed myself of Imani’s services. I wasn’t sure if I was up for the ribbing she’d dish out when I was trapped in her chair.

I eyed the gray storm clouds pressing down on Haven Hollow. There was magic charging the air tonight, not all of it the neutral background hum of the Hollow’s protective enchantments. It looked like a blizzard might slam our town again, though that could have been Tally’s own stress leakinginto the air around us. She certainly had enough to worry about. No one would blame her if an unseasonable storm hit. But somehow, I didn’t think this was her doing.

Roy Osbourne was waiting on the front stoop of the Half-Moon Bar and Grill, squinting into the dark, tracking me as I approached. His eyes were neutral, which I considered a compliment. There was a time in his history when he would have regarded me with contempt. I didn’t think we’d ever be bosom pals, but I trusted him to back me in a fight. Sometimes that was the only compliment you had to offer a fellow warrior.

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