Page 155 of Fate and Flame
“This is real, Ara. Any of us could die. If I do and Greeve doesn’t, will you . . .” She paused. “Will you tell him that I love him? I haven’t told him yet.”
“You should. Of course I will, but it should come from you.”
“I know, I just don’t want him to think I’m saying goodbye.”
“A pact, then.” I grabbed her hand. “We don’t fucking die in this war. We have weddings, we marry our mates, and we have babies running around the castle together. Mine will be slightly more beautiful than yours, but that’s just genetics. And when we are two thousand years old and we get tired of our males’ overbearing fae shit, we’ll move to an island together and make them hunt us.”
She laughed, and the sun caught the tear in her eye.
“Hey, seriously though. We don’t die. We fight until our last breath. Deal?”
“Deal.” She jerked me into a hug and I let her. I even hugged her back.
“Females are weird.” Kai shook his head, swinging a sword through the air as he worked out his own aggression.
“Don’t you have an army to move?” I gave him the finger.
He winked at me and kept going.
“He seem a bit moodier to you lately?” I asked under my breath.
She nodded. “He’s the commander about to go to war. I’d say if he wasn’t moody that would be something to worry about.”
Gaea and I shuffled into the group tent where Fen and Greeve stood hunched over the map spread across the table my knife was embedded in.
“Where are they?” Fen asked.
Gaea leaned forward and pointed to a spot on the map straight south of the castle.
“Four days march if we rest.” He sank back into a chair, studying the parchment as if it might transform into better circumstances.
“While it’s just the four of us here, I have a plan to get Nadra back,” I said. “Gaea takes me in.” I held up my hand to interrupt whatever objection Fen was about to throw at me. “She comes back, grabs the two of you and drops you outside the tent. Greeve cleaves you around the outside of the tent so you aren’t seen. Gaea does that weird, intangible misty thing she does and comes back in. It looks like I’m the only one there. I’ll stay back near the door and demand Nadra be let outside of the tent before I come any closer. The moment she is close enough, Gaea grabs us both and we leave. If all hell breaks loose, you two are there as backup.”
Fen ran his fingers through his hair. “She has to take us first. You aren’t getting left there alone for a single second.”
“Fine, whatever.”
“Now?” Gaea asked.
“I need to leave orders for Inok and Kai. As soon as I get back, we should go. There’s no telling what he is doing to her, and I can’t let her or Temir suffer any longer than necessary.” He kissed me and hustled out.
I turned to Greeve. Brooding, dark Greeve. With his long hair and tattooed skin. His weapons were nowhere near as intimidating as the look on his face.
“We’ve always had a bond, you and I,” I said, grabbing his hand.
He shook his head.“No. We don’t say goodbye before a fight. Ever.”
“I’m not saying goodbye, Greeve.” Still, his face hardened. “I need a favor.”He shook his head.“You know what you have to do. If it comes down to me and him, he is your king.”He crossed his muscular arms over his chest.“He gets out before I do, do you hear me? He doesn’t have an heir. He gets out.”
“Don’t make me choose.” I heard the falter in his hardened voice, the love for me within his words.
“There isn’t a choice and you know it.”
He clenched his jaw, keeping still for a long time, stone cold and silent. Eventually, he dipped his chin just enough to agree and then grabbed my hand and yanked me to him. “It won’t come to that,” he whispered. “But if it does, I promise.”
“You too.” I caught Gaea’s eye. “You don’t save me if you can’t save him. If you have to choose, you choose him.”
“I hate you for forcing this,” she whispered and looked away, nodding.
