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Her kindness spills more tears from my eyes. Sniffing, I collect the items and head back inside.
This time, I bolt the door, close the curtains, and toss my cape over the mirror to hide my face. Then I undress and check my wounds. The baby Wild Hunt left shallow gouges over my legs. I need to be careful with wounds now that I’m mortal.
After cleaning, I nibble the food and rifle through my bag for something clean to wear but realize I don’t have spare pants. These leather fighting breeches won’t be comfortable for sleep.
I empty the contents of my bag, taking stock. The portal stone from Elphyne is still there. Even though I have no manabeeze to activate it, simply knowing the stone is here feels like a safety net.
The portraits and dagger go on the bedside table. I toss a spare shirt and panties on the dresser, then return the salted meat rations to the bag and some smaller survival items. The last thing I pull from the pack is the Nexus pamphlet, revealing a piece of folded paper I don’t remember putting there.
Unfolding it, I’m surprised to see Alfie’s familiar handwriting.
Burn After Reading.
Midnight, alone tomorrow. I’ll make good on my promise.
For the Gold.
A
I don’t understand.We used to pass secret messages with nonsense about treasure and then burn the paper so “marauding pirates” couldn’t catch us. Does he want to play one of our old games? That’s a bit awkward at our age.
No words are on the other side of the letter. I’ll have to ask him tomorrow, but before I forget, I toss it in the fireplace and watch it burn. It’s not until the flames die completely that I pull back the bed’s plucked covers and slip in naked.
My shifter side of the family is nude half the day due to their frequent changes from wolf to fae form. I don’t shift similarly, but I picked up habits like big puppy piles to sleep in, cuddling, nesting, and occasionally marking my territory. The twins often climbed into my bed and shifted out claws long enough to pluck my covers and nest with me.
The only wolfish part of me I hate is the fever heat that grips me when my cycle hits. For a few days, I’m tingling like a tinger in mating season and impossible to live with. Myfather was horrified when he found out I’d gone through my first heat in Crystal City—alone and away from any wolf shifter community that would explain I’m not a freak for my natural desires. But by that time, the taint on the Well prevented us from communicating through water. Rory had me assessed by the human physician, but they couldn’t help.
Which made me feel more like a freak. No human wanted to mate with me. Alfie was stubbornly traditional and wanted to wait until marriage to have sex. I was left bursting with painfully unfulfilled needs. Seeing to my own desire never worked. It’s like my body knew I was cheating.
All I could do to ease the suffering was fill a tub with iced water. I would soak for hours a day until the heat passed. But now, since Rory died, I refuse to soak in a tub. It’s so stupid. I know I can’t drown, but my nightmares don’t care.
Swallowing my self-pity, I roll around and pluck some more until I’m settled in a comfortable arrangement, then close my eyes with a sigh. It smells like lavender. Clean and warm.
As my exhaustion catches up, a clock chimes somewhere in the castle, and then I fall asleep.
Chapter
Twenty
WILLOW
Aweight lands on my chest. I jolt awake and reach for my dagger, but something wet drags up my face. My eyes ping open to see a horned dragon skull—the wetsomethingdangling from his panting mouth and dripping saliva.
“Baby Hunt?” I squeak, blinking through the haze of sleep. Pre-dawn light sneaks through the gaps in the curtains.
He wiggles on my chest, squashing my lungs.Oof. Another lick and then his tongue lolls. His tail thumps on my stomach.
“Your breath smells like sour meat.” I avert my face. Gross.
The wildling takes that as a sign to lick my other cheek like it’s the tastiest meal. I pick him up. At least, I think he’s a he. I check beneath his belly. Oh, yes. No mistaking that dangling appendage.
Moving him to the floor, I toss the covers and rub my eyes. The tiny terror starts running laps of my small room, tearing up the rug with his vicious claws. I grin at his excited black eyes. It’s so strange how the skull sockets don’t move, but I can still sense the change in his mood beyond the body language changes.
“You’re happy I’m awake?” I chuckle. But then I notice the destruction he made while I slept. “Oh no! You naughty little dragon. What have you done?”
He stops running and cants his head as if it’s unconscionable I’m upset with him. But all my dried meat rations have been hunted from my bag and eaten. The portrait sketches are ripped and half-eaten. A trail of soggy paper leads to a wet patch that smells like puke. Coal and debris from the fireplace are all over the carpet. It’s so Well-damn cold!
Shivering, I pluck my uniform shirt from the ground and notice it’s covered in sooty paw prints. I think he tried to lick the white goop stain.Crimson save me, he got into everything. A quick check reveals the portal stone is still here, and I’m wearing Tinger’s pendant. Another rifle through my clothes gives me the worst news of all.
