Page 40 of A Deception of Courts

Luckily, it wasn’t required to stop along the Durmain coastline to restock since leaving Lockinge. Rafaela had seen to us being stocked up with food and supplies, ensuring we could keep moving toward our destination without delaying.

That wasn’t the only reason I was glad we didn’t need to stop. We didn’t know what lurked along the human landscape. Their hate for our kind would take longer to repair, and it was best we returned to our realm as soon as possible. Both to return the fey back to their rightful homes and to enter the chaos that was left in the wake of Aldrick’s destruction of the Elmdew Court.

Every day that passed was another day closer to Aldrick becoming a threat to another court. I only hoped the birds we sent with messages reached the courts before Aldrick’s force did.

Footsteps sounded across the deck, distracting me. It was unusual for someone to be up so early. I turned, gathering myself, and prepared to leave the sailors to their tasks, but it was Kayne who emerged from the shadowed stairwell. A look of surprise splashed across his freckled face, telling me that he didn’t expect to find anyone awake.

I offered a smile and made a move to leave.

“Rushing off?” he called after me, voice thick with a yawn.

Suddenly, I felt awkward. I fidgeted with my hands, kept in place as Kayne stood at the exit of the lower decks. Tall, thin as a reed with long legs and arms, which he stretched away, the tiredness settled in his bones.

“I left Duncan a while ago. It would be better that I’d returned to the cabin by the time he wakes up,” I replied, trying to read the trepidation in his narrowed eyes. “Unless you would prefer my company?”Which I doubt you would.

I hardly had shared a word with him in days, and not by my own choice. Kayne laughed but said nothing to combat my question, proving my theory right.

Lucari gleefully swooped from his shoulder, wings flapping in a blur as she shot skyward toward Rafaela, giving chase. Once the hawk drew close to the Nephilim, she recognised Rafaela wasn’t willing to play and quickly dipped away from her. Her squawk practically screamed with fear.

“Can’t sleep either?” he asked, breaking the silence between us. I hated how tense he was when he spoke to me. I wasn’t the one starting the conversation, and yet I still felt like it was an agony getting any more than a few words out of him at a time.

“Not really. I’ve been awake for hours, something about the swaying that really fucks with my stomach,” I replied, feeling the usual awkwardness that thickened the air when Kayne was around. After our last interaction, it seemed Kayne did everything to only be around me when Duncan was there. Even the hesitant glint in his eyes revealed he would have preferred I’d not seen him. “How about you?”

“All I will say is the moment my feet touch the solid, unmoving ground, I might just cry,” Kayne said, focusing his attention on his hawk and not on me. “I’ve heard we have a couple more days of this hell to get through.”

“If winds permit, we will reach Wychwood late evening in two days. At the earliest.”

“Oh, I can just imagine the warm welcome now,” Kayne said, not bothering to conceal the roll of his eyes.

“You were a Hunter. Forgive the fey for treating you with caution, which I am sure you can understand they’ll have…”

“I sense a but coming on.”

“But, they will learn to trust you like I have.”

He shot me a look, brow furrowing. “Do you?”

“I hope so.”

Kayne huffed, stretching his neck backwards and then to either side. Besides what his words suggested, nothing about him seemed concerned. “Duncan will expect the welcome too, right? What is to say you are not leading us blindly, to reach Wychwood only to be met with a trial for our heinous crimes?”

“After everything we’ve been through, you still don’t trust my intentions,” I replied. I savoured the harsh copper tang as my teeth gnawed down into the inside of my cheeks. The pain and taste were the distraction required to not say what I truly wanted.

Kayne shrugged, smiled and walked right past me with the confidence of someone knowing where they wished to go. Which, on a deck surrounded by stretches of ocean and nowhere to go, confirmed he just wished to get away from me.

“Is there a problem?” I asked, rooted to the spot.

“I don’t know, should there be?” Kayne said, shrugging broad shoulders.

“No. Kayne, I don’t understand your hostility toward me. I don’t want to have this relationship with you,” I said, chasing after him like a fool. In another world, I would’ve walked away, cursing his name under my breath. But Kayne was Duncan’s closest friend. His brother of soul, not blood. It was imperative we got along.

And I needed Kayne for other means. Selfish, yes, but still important. Kayne’s skills as a Tracker were highly desirable for the problem I had: locating Jesi.

“Do you want me to pretend to like you?” he asked.

My throat tightened. “Ah, so he finally admits it.”

“I thought I’d made it obvious. Guess I should’ve tried harder.”

---