Page 197 of Bride of the Midnight Prince

“A fae found me. A great, tall fae with horns curling out of its head.”

The blood drains from Rahk’s face. “You were a slave? In Faerieland?”

“In Nothril.”

He buries his head in his hands. When he lifts it again, his eyes are reddened. “You were a slave. In Nothril. As a child?” He looks away from me. Still, I catch the tear that slides down his cheek. It cuts me in half. The muscles in his throat flex. He seems to struggle pulling himself together before he croaks, “How long?”

“Not long,” I whisper. “A few days. It was the Valehaven Tailor who had pity on me, and when he discovered I could see the edges of the Paths, he told me how to leave. I went back home . . . only to find Mama was gone. She’d come after me. No one knew what happened to her.”

“So you went back,” he whispers.

I nod.

“You knew how to find Paths,” he continues, putting the pieces together. “So you tried different ones, searching for your mother. Was that how it began? You would go to different Courts and then you would show others how to get out?”

“It took me a while to be brave enough to go back. But once I started, I did not stop. I met the tailor again and we began coordinating rescues as I grew older.”

“What ever happened to your mother?”

“I still don’t know. My belief is that she wandered the Wood and against all chance, somehow found her way out. She was wearing the same clothes when she came out as she did going in. I did not find any evidence she had been a slave.” I pause, hesitating. Then, “Rahk . . . I did not suffer much as a slave. The hardest part was losing Mama.”

“But you felt like youshouldhave suffered,” Rahk says. “Because you were the reason your mother was lost—and because so many others had to stay a slave while you got out.”

Emotion clogs my throat. I look away.

“It all makes sense,” he says softly. Then, with earnest gentleness, “Do you truly think this changes how dear you are to me?”

I stare at him with more shock than if he’d sprouted two new heads. “Why, yes, I did think it changed things. I thought me being a criminal to the fae changed things very, very much.”

“I never wanted to hurt you.” He buries his head in his hands. “I don’t know what to do now. I don’t know how to protect you. If I don’t take you back to Nothril, my sister will die.”

My voice is dull with resignation. “Then take me back.”

“If I take you back, they will makemeenforce their judgment.”

My own face crumples. “I’m so sorry.”

He shoots to his feet, raking a hand through his hair as he paces across the floor. When he speaks, it sounds like there are tears in his voice again. They strike my heart like shards of glass. “I’ve known for some time it was you. I just so badly didn’t want to believe it that I refused to even consider it. But I knew. I knew when I saw the injury on your leg.”

I close my eyes, fighting the shuddering of my own lungs.

The slice of a knife through rope makes my eyes fly wide. Rahk cuts each of my bonds, until I am able to sit up and clutch the quilt to my chest.

“Whatever happens, there is something we must do.” Rahk takes my hand, pressing it flat against his.

I have never seen this ritual, yet somehow I recognize it. I try to yank my hand back. “You cannot—you cannot bond with me! I’m about to die, Rahk!”

“You won’t die if I have a say in things,” he growls, tightening his grip on my hand. “I told you before. I cannot take you into Faerieland as anything other than my true, bonded wife. So if I take you to Nothril, then it will be as my wife.”

I hardly breathe as he murmurs the words of a spell that feels so sacred, it should never be uttered on our magicless soil. Still, I do not protest when he tells me the words I must speak. He tells me his name, the name only he himself knows. I speak the words back, letting our names and souls twine together as one, fused by a drop of our blood. Our heartbeats pulse in tandem. A new, strange, and exhilarating sensation.

Then Rahk gets to his feet, his black eyes devouring me whole. “I don’t know what to do yet, but I will. I am not letting them hurt you.”

When he strides out, the air in the room feels thinner, stretched too tight. I clutch my palm to my chest, fingers pressing against the place where his presence lingers, where something irrevocable has settled into my bones. I don’t call him back. But my lips part, just for a second, as if I might.

Chapter 65

Rahk

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