Page 167 of Deadwood
“You’re wasting your time,” I said to King Tenere. “Taylin will bleed out, and it will all be for nothing.”
He didn’t spare Taylin a glance as she let out a whimper at my words.
“She is not my concern,” he replied.
“She should be.”
King Tenere loosed a sigh, like it was such an inconvenience to hear me speak. “Why is that?”
My jaw clenched. “Because she is one of your people.”
Rage seemed to seep into his bones as he stepped forward, his anger shaking the loose flesh of his neck. “My daughter is one of my people, and yet, you will not give her back.”
“As if she is a pawn to be handed off?”
“She—” He sputtered, but I cut him off.
“Tell me, King Tenere, why don’t you ever use her name?”
He blinked, taken off guard by the question. “I do.”
I tried my best to ignore the shouts of men, women, and children in the distance as Amosite’s guards broke into their homes, searching for Auria as they ripped doors off their hinges, shattered windows and tore apart furniture. Still, Deadwood wouldn’t fight back, not unless I gave the signal. They would be safe. We could replace materials. It was their lives I needed intact. “Never when speaking respectfully of her.”
His nostrils flared.
“Auria is not here,” I repeated. He needed to leave so I could stop wasting my fucking time and find her. “Call your guards off.”
“I’d be a fool to trust an imposter leader.” He intended for the words to hit where he wanted, but they didn’t land. Unfortunately for him, I never missed.
“Better an imposter than corrupt.”
Before he could lose himself to the anger building inside him, a guard approached him, coming from the town. He muttered something to the king, then stepped to the side.
“Drop her,” King Tenere ordered without so much as a glance Taylin’s way.
The other guard let go of Taylin’s arm, the only thing keeping her up, and she collapsed to the ground on a sob, landing hard on her side. Her hand instantly went to her leg, hovering near the wound as she squeezed her eyes shut. Her clothing was soaked through with blood. She was losing too much of it. Flynt kept his eyes trained on her the entire time, watching her every move, his muscles straining as he held himself back.
“Let this be a message to my daughter,” the king said as more of his guards began returning to surround the carriages once more. In the distance, the sky began to lighten, indicating dawn was near. “If she is hiding, I will find her. And the longer she takes to come home, the more innocent people will suffer.”
King Tenere retreated to the comfort of his carriage, and once he was tucked inside, the large group of guards began moving, heading back in the direction they had come.
As soon as the last man was barely ten feet away, Flynt moved, not wasting a second. His sheath bounced against his hip before he crashed to his knees in the sand beside Taylin’s shaking, sobbing form. Two of Deadwood’s guards joined him, attempting to assist him in calming Taylin down so they could get her to the infirmary. I wanted to help her, but I couldn’t, knowing that Auria wasn’t here. I had to go to her. Above all else, I had to find her.
“Siara,” I called.
She spun from where she stood discussing something with a distraught woman.
I held the necklace out in my palm. “Take me to where you found this.”
CHAPTER 52
BOWEN
Ileft Flynt and the rest of them to take care of Taylin as I followed Siara through the crowd of men and women armed and confused. King Tenere had almost been…too nice, given the fact his daughter was missing and she was the one who supplied his kingdom with magic. He should’ve been irate, ready to burn Deadwood to the ground in order to find her. His departure after a simple wound to Taylin’s thigh and wrecking some houses was unsettling, but I couldn’t worry about what his plans might be as we hurried toward the back of the town.
Rather than taking me to the house Auria was staying in—where I thought she’d been hiding this entire time—Siara led me toward my own residence. To where she’d found Auria’s necklace.
“Here,” Siara said, pointing to the corner of the porch. “It was dangling off the edge.”
