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The shriek comes again, and the trees behind us rustle. Great clawed talons appear as the bird drops through a hole in the canopy, its midnight feathers and blood-red head marking it as a Grim Eagle. It’s already spotted us, its huge wings expanded just enough to avoid the sharp thorns as it dives toward us. We can’t survive its claws, much less its razor-edged beak.
“Gareth!” Beth’s voice quakes. “Use your magic!”
“Can’t.” I throw one glance at the muddy descent, then another at the great bird. Yanking Beth under my arm, I throw both of us off the ledge, our bodies hitting the mud with a wet thunk as the Grim Eagle’s talons stretch out for us.
“My ass,” Beth groans and rolls to her side.
I hold my hand out to heal her aches.
“Save it.” She waves me away. “Better yet, use it on your arm.”
“My arm will heal.”
“Sure, but if I have to watch you stop, stand still, and stare at a tree as if it’s speaking to you one more time, I may lose my mind.”
“I don’t—”
“You do,” she snipes. “Heal your arm.”
“You may as well do what she says,” the thick tree whose roots we’ve taken shelter beneath grumbles. “That poison isn’t fatal, but you’ll start hallucinating soon if you don’t heal it.”
“Soon?” I tap the nearest root. It’s almost as muddy as I am.
The tree giggles. “Stop. That tickles.”
I do it again and laugh along with the tree.
Beth sighs. “Gareth, you’re poisoned and talking to the roots. Just use your magic.” She rolls over and cups my face. “I am begging you. I prefer grumpy Gareth to giggling Gareth any day.”
It’s a waste of magic, but if my mate begs, I can’t deny her. I concentrate on my swollen arm, green sparks skittering along my skin as the dark red poison oozes out, my flesh repairing itself as my mind clears.
“Thank you.” She releases my face and flips to her stomach, her pert, muddy backside filling my vision.
Before she can refuse, I send the last of my healing into her.
She yelps and wrinkles her nose at me. “I felt that.”
“Better?” I run my fingers through her mussed hair, but I have to stop halfway through because of the knots and do an awkward pat.
“Much better.” She rolls her eyes. “My hair is a rat’s nest. Good luck.”
“Still beautiful.” I run my hand down her back.
“Sweet words from my grumpy fae.” She presses her lips together in a pensive way. “Why couldn’t you use your magic on the bird? I saw what you did to Granthos.” A shudder trembles through her, which I don’t like one bit. My mate should never fear me.
I move closer to her, the mud squelching beneath me. “I can’t control it. You know that.”
“You controlled it with Granthos.” Her too-clever eyes pin me.
“No, I didn’t. I brought the house down—almost on our heads, if you recall.”
“But you didn’t hurt me.”
“That was just a stroke of luck.” I shake my head. “My magic is too unstable. I’ve never been able to master it. It lashes out.”
“Lash it out at assholes like Granthos. That works great.”
“It’s not that easy.”
“It looked easy.” She nods. “Super easy. Poof went Granthos. I don’t even know what you did, really. He just sort of disintegrated.” Her smile is part vicious, part whimsy. “One of the best moments of my life.”
Regret boils in my gut. “I ended him too quickly.”
“But you did it so well, and that’s what counts. Such style. Brutal and efficient.” She taps the end of my nose with her dirty finger in a maddening, yet endearing way. “So just keep doing that to evil bastards, and you’ll be good to go.”
I watch a long snail pass through the muck above our heads, its green shell slick and shiny. “Granthos was the exception, not the rule.”
“How so? I need some examples, because all I’ve seen so far is upside.”
I sigh, the memories unwelcome. “Back when things got dire and it looked like Leander’s army might fall beneath Shathinor’s, I used my magic on the battlefield. Though I destroyed one of the dark king’s legions, I also nearly killed dozens of my own. The destruction that runs through my veins isn’t something I can unleash without terrible consequences.”
“But why?” She rests her cheek on her palm. “Why have this power if you can’t use it?”
I’ve asked myself that question more times than I can count. But the answer is the same. I lean into her touch. “You know, I once followed the magic to ask it that very thing.”
“You?” Her eyebrows rise. “You followed the magic’s savage call? You? The pinnacle of reason and rules?”
I give a half-hearted shrug. “I didn’t go all the way to the Otherworld, but yes, I did follow it a short way, and I asked it why I can’t wield my magic as I should.”
“What did it say?” Her eyes widen, the brown flecked with gold toward the centers.
“Gave me a riddle, of course. It said ‘Magic is yours to bear, yours to command. Control is your strength, rigid fae. Logic and rules have created a seal. But to control magic? The only way is to feel.’”
“Feel? How?”
I shrug. “I’ve been trying to figure it out for centuries.”
“Obviously, it means you’re so orderly and stuff that you need to get in touch with your emotions.”
“Why must everyone say that?” I rest my head on my forearm to keep it out of the muck. “I have emotions.”
“Yeah? When?” She smiles, her eyes glinting. “I’ve only ever seen disappointed, grumpy, or angry. And all those have been somewhat subdued—until Granthos. Then? You were rage incarnate. And you controlled your magic.”
“It was a fluke.”
“You should try—”
“I’m dangerous, Beth.” I resume stroking her back. “I won’t hurt my friends again. And I will never hurt you. I can’t risk it. My magic can’t be unleashed like that. It’s not stable, and guesswork—no matter how well-meaning—isn’t going to make it any more reliable.”
Her mouth twists into a sexy smirk. “Do your friends let you get away with that?”
“With what?”
“Pretending like you know what’s best and are supremely reasonable when all the while you are just being an obstinate ass?”
A laugh rips from me, the sound too big for the small hollow beneath the ticklish tree. When she smiles, my heart seems to bang against my chest.
“My feisty beloved.” I pull her closer. “When I first saw you in that dungeon—”
“You said that you’d prefer to leave me to my fate but had been commanded by your queen to free me.” She draws her brows down into an overdone glare. “And you said it with a snarl.”
My lips curl at the memory. “You abused me with salty language first. Remember? I told you I’d come to set you free, and you cussed me for a liar and told me to go straight to the Spires. Or did you forget that part?”
