Page 103 of Royal Captive
“Do you know what to do?” Ellis asked lightly, the second eyebrow rising to join the first.
“It … can’t be that hard. The feathers are already gone. We just need to cut it up, put it on a stick, and cook it. Anything too nasty can be burned away.”
Ellis’s nose wrinkled as I tried to bluster my way through an explanation. He turned away to find some appropriate sticks.
Feyanna sidled up next to me and put her hand out for the chicken and the knife. My pulse raced in my veins, warning bells going off in my head. A princess wouldn’t know how to prepare meat for a meal. She had hordes of servants for that. I handed them over anyway, half convinced she’d prove herself to be someone she wasn’t or, at the very least, give me something to laugh at as she tried.
She stared hard at the knife in her left hand and the chicken in her right. Her eyes closed, and shesmashedthem together.
Before I could let out a squawk, she pulled her hands apart and perfectly cut pieces of meat fell into the folds of her dress. In her hands she held all the bones and nasty remnants.
“La i ja fa?” she asked faintly.
Ellis peered into her lap. “I believe so. Eve, would you do the honors?” He gestured with his head toward the cut meat and the small pile of sticks he’d procured.
I sighed and speared it, arranging it over the fire to cook. Ellis helped Feyanna up, then moved to my side to stoke the fire. She dropped the discarded bits on the ground next to her.
Silence descended between our small trio, but not in the forest. Juices trickled down from the cooking meat, hissing and spitting as moisture hit the hot stones around the fireplace.
It smelled too good. We would have to eat it all, and quickly.
Feyanna sat across the fire from us, golden eyes glowing in the darkness. The same odd, intrusive thought came out of nowhere:Be kind to Feyanna. She is sad. She needs your help.
“Do you think we are too hard on her?” Ellis said softly against my ear, leaning into my shoulder.
I’d felt the urge to go easy on her all day; I had enough common sense to squash it. It didn’t matter that she was scaredand alone. She was still present when her sister had raped Ellis, and hadn’t done anything to stop it.
Feyanna was not our friend.
“No. This is how people become stronger; they struggle. Let her struggle for once in her life,” I said.
Golden eyes raised across the fire to meet mine, a brief flash of challenge flitting across the flames to me.
No, not possible. I was imagining things, seeing challenges and hardships where there weren’t any. How long now have I been in a constant state of anxiety and alert? I couldn’t remember the last time I’d relaxed.
All because of the fae.
My resolve hardened as I glared across the fire at Feyanna. She blinked, her gaze lowering to the fire.
Yeah, that’s what I thought.
She shifted uneasily, then stood.
“Let’s get some rest, perhaps?” Ellis suggested, lying down by the fire and reaching for a cloak to toss over us.
He curled an arm around my waist as we laid down. His chest was warm and comforting against my back. It was tempting to relax against him. But that wasn’t what I focused on.
Instead, I watched Feyanna as her cloaked figure shuffled into the woods, gathering the scraps from our meal into a scrap of cloth and tying them to hang off a tree branch so the remains didn’t attract animals during the night.
Without being told to.
My eyes narrowed, the niggling sense that something wasn’t quite right refused to go away. I snuggled against Ellis and went to sleep, determined to keep a closer eye on her.
I woke up in the middle of the night as thunder crashed overhead. Ellis jerked against me, lightning briefly illuminating the woods and the tree we leaned against as though it was daylight.
Feyanna was nowhere to be found.
Ellis swore and made to stand, but I pushed him back down against the tree. The sky opened up on us, but, thankfully, it was only rain, and not hail.
