Page 31 of The Stones for It
Fury contorted his features into a wicked snarl. The sound ripped through the narrow cave, and my hand dropped to my blade on instinct.
He’d had plenty of opportunity to hurt me though, and, if anything, he kept saving me instead.
“What’s got yer loincloth in a twist?”
Chapter thirteen
Vrath
Alow growl rumbled my chest. “How can I protect you if you keep running off into danger?”
I flung my claws in the direction she’d been wildly sprinting after an unknown, and likely deadly, fae, before I’d saved her from theweather, of all things.
Irritation prickled my spikes.
“That’swhat this is about? That I went after a lead?” She scoffed. “I don’t need your protection.”
“Everyone needs my protection!” I roared.
The sound echoed off the basalt walls, ricocheting back at me with the force of my own anger.
She seemed to absorb it all. The outburst and the echo. Whatever emotion must be carved across my features. Lurking in my eyes.
I shut it all down, embarrassed by my foolish little tantrum. Such displays were unacceptable. Weak.
I was a stars-damned royal. Not some untrained whelp.
And yet she’d seen it all. This mortal with her sharp tongue and uncanny ability to dig beneath my tough hide until she poked at all my vulnerable, squishy parts.
“Vrath,” she hissed my name like a curse, anger meeting mine on the battlefield, unflinching. “I didn’t ask for your protection and I don’t need it.”
Flashes of my brother’s shocked face as bullets tore through his wing membranes flooded my mind. My mother’s horror as she realised what was happening, iron bullets slamming into her middle. My sister’s screams.
I swallowed thickly, a familiar darkness rising to choke me with the memories.
Of my failures. Of whatherkind had done.
“You’re right. It’s not my responsibility to protect a lost little human. I am a protector of the fae. A King who led the Council’s armies in the mortal war. My sworn duty is to keep my kind safe from the atrocities of yours.” My upper lip lifted in a sneer, but somehow pain leaked into my tone. “I may not have been able to save my family, but I’ll cast myself out of Faerie before I let my friend fall to your mortal treachery.”
She flinched, and as soon as the words left my mouth, I regretted them.
Neiron had made his own choices. It wasn’t her fault that he was in peril now.
I cleared my throat, looking away as the weight of her stare bore down on me. Guilt strangled me for more reasons than I could count.
“I’m sorry about your family,” she whispered, barely audible over the pattering rain outside, her dark eyes soft, understanding. “In war, even the victors lose.”
I met her gaze, swimming with a grief of her own. Droplets clung to her sooty lashes like diamonds.
Her words undid me. Here I was, lashing out like some petulant child, and she was taking all of my irrational anger with the calm maturity of a true warrior. She was this tiny thing, magicless and in enemy territory with only a puny dagger to defend herself with.
Yet she faced it all down with a smirk on her plush lips.
“Kelsea…” Her name left me on a strained breath.
She chewed her lower lip, drawing my attention like a tracker spell.
It wasn’t her fault I was such a mess. She had her own concerns without me spilling my failures all over the place.
