Page 12 of A Deception of Courts

If I added that concern to my shoulders, I would have crumpled before unlocking the final cuff. I had to have faith that she had been freed by Althea or Duncan and that we would be reunited once we left Lockinge far behind us.

Relief had yet to settle. I expected to meet resistance. Not that I hoped for the worst, but everything had gone too close to plan. It unnerved me. I massaged at my lower stomach, turning to work out the knot that had settled within it. Duncan stood like a statue of stone at my side with his hand on my lower back. Even with the material separating his touch from my skin, I still recognised the slow, circular motion his thumb made.

“I am so proud of you,” Duncan whispered to me. I tried to allow his words to fill me with some sense of clarity, but they did not. “It would have been easier to turn your back on these people and place your hope for their rescue in others. I admire the choices you have made.”

“Don’t speak so soon,” I replied. Michal was close to my side, helping the older fey and making it his sole purpose to make sure no one was left bound. I nodded at him, face stoic, as he passed. “Until every single one of them has boarded our ships, I will not mark this as a success.”

Duncan’s hand lifted from my back. The lack of his touch had me turning to look at him, which was exactly what he wished for. He took my chin between his thumb and forefinger, lifting my face to look at him. The prison was engulfed in chaos. I heard some commotion toward the gate, but hoped Seraphine was keeping order.

We were so close to success.

Duncan lowered his face towards mine, cool breath brushing across my skin as his lips closed in on me. I exhaled, expecting to feel the brush of his feather-soft mouth upon mine. But the feeling did not come. I opened my eyes to look deep into his. The green was so vivid this close that I could have felt as though I was lost in a forest with no way out.

Not that I would have ever wished to escape his entrapment.

“Take a moment and allow yourself to truly understand what you have just accomplished.”

“We,” I muttered, gaze flickering between his mouth and his narrowing eyes. “Nothing about this has been solely my doing. Without you, Althea, Seraphine and even Kayne… well, I would have failed before even beginning.”

“There is something endearing about your inability to see what you are capable of, Robin, but one day you are going to learn to reflect on your actions and recognise the effect they have on others.”

I lifted onto my toes, reaching a hand up to the back of Duncan’s head. My fingers coiled through his thick chestnut hair; my nails traced dangerously across his scalp. I felt Duncan melt into a bundle of pleasured shivers.

“Do me a favour and tell me this all again when we reach… home,” I said, staring deep into his soul.

“Is that what you are calling it now?” Duncan tilted his head, allowing my hand to bring him closer to me to close the small gap that was left between us.

As my lips pressed into his, I replied, “Maybe.”

The kiss was brief but deep and passionate. I allowed myself a moment to forget the world around me and focus only on the man in my hold. Duncan, who had turned his back on the indoctrination that he had been subjected to, fell willingly into my hands. We had found each other during a time when neither of us was looking. I would never let go of him, even if there was another name that still lingered at the back of my mind.

No. Don’t.I pushed the thoughts back, keeping them away like wolves from a burning torch.Not him.

“Are you ready to see this through?” Duncan asked, pulling away. My hands tickled across the short hairs that shadowed his jaw until he fell completely from my touch.

The corner of my lip turned upward as we both looked toward the stairwell. My stomach jolted as the darkness beckoned me forward. Far above, the fey would soon file out into the courtyard littered with the slain bodies of Hunters and Kingsmen. How would they react when they looked up to see the sky and the stars and feel the kiss of freedom as the night wind enveloped them in its embrace?

I looked back to Duncan, feeling the swell in my chest and allowing it to steal away my anxiety, if only for a moment.

“Stop!” a high-pitched scream sounded, and I swore my blood turned to ice. I spun around to face the sound, only to see the crowd swell like a tidal wave, right in the direction of the gate.

A crack followed, then the Below silenced. The peace lasted only a moment before fey, mere moments before we’d be ready to lead them to freedom, surged at the gate. Magic cracked the air, splitting it in two. And all I could do was watch as the fey broke through Seraphine’s one-woman guard and ran away from me, directly toward impending danger.

CHAPTER 5

The dawn sky fought through thick clouds of smoke which did their best to block out the rising sun. It left the world awash with the brush of dark russet. Beyond the impenetrable clouds of ash, the dawn fought hard for its rightful place. Although the hue of deep orange and red replaced the usual blues, it still allowed some light in to know that we had spent far longer than expected in the deep caverns of Lockinge’s prison.

It was the perfect backdrop for my crumbling plan. All my hard work literally running away from me, and there was nothing I could do to stop it.

The muscles in my legs screamed as I ran out of the Below, lungs aching, back bowing as though I carried the weight of the world on it. And in a sense, I did. Because my world, everything about my life over the past three weeks had led to this moment.

I should’ve known they wouldn’t listen to me, but gods know I wasn’t going to give up now.

It was clear the moment Duncan and I escaped the staircase and flooded out into the chaos beyond that ruled the human city.

The courtyard before the rise of Lockinge Castle bustled with fey gripped in the throes of panic. I pushed through the swell of the crowd, suddenly aware of the stench that poured from the bodies of the captured fey as the winds whipped among the crowd. The smell of stone and musk did well to combat the heavy presence of burning wood and charred stone that wafted up the incline from the slums. The Cage still burned, hot and violent.

It was impossible to understand where I was when the majority of the bodies around me towered far taller than I. But Althea’s booming voice acted as my guide. The harder I worked through the squashed bodies, the louder her shouts became.

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