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“We want to win,” Bodin finishes, his dark eyes flashing.
Goodfellow’s need to peel back my skin and learn what makes me tick is a palpable heat on my cheeks. My fingers twitchto test the bulges, cringe, and hide from scrutiny. But he settles for, “Four are not needed for the task.”
Legion mutters something I can’t hear through the ringing in my ears, then unwinds the binding and tucks it inside Fox’s embroidered coat pocket. No words pass between them, yet somehow, everyone knows what to do next. Bodin and Legion leave together. The Wild Hunt whimpers when he’s called, but a ribbon of shadow shoots from Bodin’s hand and lassos around the baby dragon like a leash. Emrys leaves with Goodfellow.
It looks like a surrender, but it’s not. When I turn, Fox is already walking toward the exit. He arrives at the archway and flicks me a disinterested glance. I can’t tell what’s an act and what’s real.
“I’m going to kill you for what you did to me,” I declare.
As if my words are imagined, Fox casually checks his nails.
“Hurry along now, little wolf,” he says. “My attentions are in high demand elsewhere.”
Chapter
Fifteen
FOX
Iam drunk on her scent. I thought I wanted to be closer to Willow, but now I can’t think straight. We had to put on a show for that insufferable nuisance, Puck, and now she thinks we despise her.
I’m going to kill you.
Her words pierce my heart in more ways than she can imagine.
She still thinks we’re monsters.
She hates us. She hates us. Varen was wrong.
And I don’t know what to do, so I walk toward the dormitories where she left her belongings. I keep playing the disinterested fool, hoping the lies stop me from doing something that cannot be taken back.
I need time tothink.
Need to clear my mind of her intoxicating presence. So I hurry along the winding path in the woods, eager for the fresh air to push her existence from my lungs. But she scurries after me, refusing to be ignored. I am a fool to think I can outrun her sweet poison. A dark part of me laughs at how perfectly savage she is. Even now, she fires off accusations and questions, refusing to be brushed aside. But the other part of me, the newerpart made from glass, already cracks under the pressure of her opinion.
What if it’s too late to change it?
“First,” she promises, panting behind me, “I’m going to study you.”
We duck past a low-hanging branch. I keep walking, my hands in my pockets.
“Then—ow, fuck. Stupid tree.” Scurrying footsteps. “Where was I? Oh, yes.Then, I will find your weaknesses and come at you when you least expect it.”
Revealing a plan to murder us might seem amateur to anyone else, but we know her. Not because we’ve watched her live a thousand lives through Varen’s psychic visions, but because she is just like us. A natural-born predator.
“I’ve already learned a lot. For example, you remember me. The others don’t.”
In every version of her future, she was miserable unless she could dominate, kill, and control. She is a predator, but not like us. We have done it for the joy, the thrill, and nothing else except we can.
She will do it to protect, to save, and to serve. But to feel safe enough to fulfill this ideal version of herself, she needs us. And we need her.
But her sultry voice is utterly vexing. Her scent drives me insane. My body is not my own around her and I have no one to talk to about it. My brothers are blind.
“And you know what? I don’t give a shit that you’re different here. It doesn’t excuse what you’ve done. You ruined my life, and I’m here to make you pay.”
I frown, pause, and spin around. She bowls into me. I catch her by the shoulders and hold her at arm’s length. For a moment, I’m struck by the blush in her cheeks, the brightness in her eyes, the starlight shining from her soul.
“Get off me.” She slaps me away, carelessly announcing to the creatures in the woods she cares little for the rules of the Old Code. Open conflict is a no-no. She is our Shadow and must only flex her fierce claws on other exhibitors within the Nexus grounds. We are nowhere near the privacy of our keep. Any minute, the pathways will fill with those traversing to their new homes.
