Page 19 of Fate and Flame
I lifted a shoulder. “So, go home.”
He pinned me with a hard look. “It’s not that easy.” I looped my arm through his, and we meandered through the halls, side by side. “Fen needs me here. Especially now that we have a murderous guest in the dungeons.”
“Right. Morwena. Aren’t you curious? What’s her story? How did they even trap her?”
“Only one way to find out.” He winked at me. His grin a contradiction to the honed weapons he always wore.
Greeve and I had settled into a different kind of friendship. Something along the lines of siblings, I imagined.
He knew he had me with that wink.
I stopped and pressed my back against an embroidered tapestry, crossing my arms. “Who are you right now? You can’t be serious. She’ll enchant you in a heartbeat.”
“Yeah. You’re right. Plus, Fen would kill me if I put you in danger.”
“Okay, first of all, Fen’s not my keeper. And second, Fen’s not my fucking keeper.”
“Mhm,” he said with a conspiratorial gaze.
“Are you trying to convince me to do something we both know I shouldn’t? What doyouwant to know? Why not just ask Fen or the king?”
“I don’t want to know anything.” He turned on his heel and continued walking. “But you do.”
“How do you know me so damned well, Greeve?”
“Because the moment you sense danger, you need to run headfirst to be right in the middle of it, and I’d prefer be there to protect you rather than finding out about it later.”
I shook my head, matching him stride for stride. “I didn’t ask to go see her and I don’t need protecting.”
“I didn’t say you did.”
“But if I wanted to, could you get me down there?”
The corner of his mouth lifted. Greeve was dangerously beautiful, and if Fen didn’t own my soul, I might have melted for that smirk. “If you wanted to, which you don’t, then yes, I think I could manage it. If you kept it between the two of us.”
I pressed my nails into my palms and turned away from him. As if I was protecting myself from the truth. “It’s just that I want to know what she knows about me. Tolero has his reasons for locking her up, but she’s been hunting me since before my parents died, and now she’s here. Right here. I can’t let that go.”
“We could wait for Fen. You could go together.”
“Something tells me he isn’t going to be a fan. If anyone in this castle was going to get me down there, it would be you.”
“Are you asking?” He casually rested his hand on the hilt of the knife at his waist, as if he already needed to protect me from something I couldn’t handle.
I looked into his eyes with solid conviction. “Yeah, I am.”
He reached to grab my arm.
“Wait. We need a plan though. You can’t stay down there. If she tries to enchant me, it won’t work, but if she aims for you, it will.”
Razor-sharp cunning morphed into something steady and dangerous upon his features. “I can’t leave you alone down there. It’s not an option.”
“Just give me a knife, I’ll be fine.” I scoffed.
“Not. An. Option,” he said in his stern draconian voice.
“What if you drop me off and circle the room so she doesn’t know you’re there, and then if anything happens, you can grab me and we can go before she has a chance to enchant you?”
“Done.”
