Page 67 of Wilds of Wonder
She looked unsure but nodded. “Okay. I won’t say a thing. And our deal. Is it still on?”
I laughed. “We just made it an hour ago.”
“Well I’m just making sure you’re not going back on it.” She scowled in a way I imagined she had so many times over the years when I’d frustrated her.
“Have you ever known me to go back on a deal?”
She pointed a finger into my chest, and it did things to me that I never knew such an innocent touch could do. Suddenly I wanted that finger trailing down my entire body.
“Hello?” She’d withdrawn her hand and now stared at me like I’d lost it.
I very well might have when it came to her. Fuck. “Sorry, didn’t hear you.”
She rolled her eyes. “The time on Halfstard Lake when you used your fire magic, even though it was against our rules?”
“I used that magic to save your life,” I said. “To defeat a giant eel that was going to make you its lunch.”
“And then you took the diadem I found.”
“You got your payback with that book in the fire court.”
Her lips twitched. “I suppose.”
Whatever happened in that crypt, I was grateful for it, because it felt like we were finally getting back to our normal selves. To the person I wanted to be when I was around her. My best self.
Shadows passed over her face, and she crossed her arms and stepped back, already retreating away. Like she’d done so many times before.
“What’s going on?” I asked, voice low. “You can tell me.”
“If we don’t find that bolt, I’m as good as dead. I have no one in this world. All alone.” She murmured the last part like I wasn’t supposed to hear it.
It broke my fucking heart that she actually thought that.
I hooked a finger under her chin and forced her to look at me. “I don’t know what the future holds, but I do know one thing for certain.”
“And what’s that?” she asked, those blue eyes so bright, so pale they almost looked like snow.
“You’re not alone. You’ve never been alone. Not since the day I met you.”
Her eyes flashed in surprise. She opened her mouth to speakwhen a bush started shaking across the clearing, and we both braced ourselves, magic flaring in our hands. The bush shook harder, and finally Driscoll and Aron emerged, Aron holding what looked like three rabbits, all of them with claws that stretched as long as my fingers as Driscoll chattered away.
“You really knew a woman who did that to a statue?” Aron asked. “Doesn’t sound very comfortable.”
Driscoll nodded. “I know. Crazy, right?”
They both stopped, gazes turning to us like they were just realizing they had an audience.
“Anyone hungry?” Driscoll asked.
Chapter Thirty-Three
EMORY
“You’re not alone. You’ve never been alone. Not since the day I met you.”
That’s what Maverick had said to me, his words so sincere that I wondered if it might actually be true. But I didn’t have much time to think on it. Not when there was so much else to dissect.
We sat around the fire, bellies full, that same twilight sky as always stretching over us with rays of emerald green slicing through the canopies. When the star court was at its full power, it must’ve been beautiful, a true sight to behold.
