Luna shuddered and hugged herself as color drained from her face. I didn’t know what the Earl of Oakley had done to his servants, but almost all of them had turned on the man.
“You could have electrocuted them if they got too pushy,” Luna muttered, but I could tell she was rethinking her golden opportunity stance.
“And how long would the other aristocrats have let me live afterward?”
“You could have gone into the other realms and… and….”
“And what?” Ellery asked. “Sold off my services? To who? Other immortals who wanted me to kill or steal for them. Or to immortals who would turn me into a mercenary? What else would I do in the other realms? Besides, Tempest is my home; it’s all I’ve ever known. My family was here, I grew up in my manor, went to school here, farmed the land, and worked with the horses. This realm is my home, and I love it.”
Luna opened her mouth before closing it, and her shoulders slumped. “Yeah, I guess you’re right, but it still would have been awesome if you’d escaped with it.”
“If we can bring down the king and nobles, then we might be able to escape. But even if we can never leave Tempest again, at least if they’re dead, we’ll be free of them,” Ellery said.
A murmur ran through the crowd.
“Do you really think we can defeat them?” a woman asked.
“I think they’re afraid of us, which is why Ivan was so brutal in his punishment of the rebels. I also believe we can doanythingif we’re willing to work together and fight for it.”
When I rested my hand on Ellery’s shoulder, their gazes went from her to me and back again. I felt their questions brewing about us but sensed their trepidation.
They all tried to get closer to Ellery to learn more, but they eyed me warily. And they were right to do so. Of the two of us, she was the one who’d welcome them, and I was the one who’d gladly kill to keep her safe… even if it meant killingthem.
When some of them shrank from my withering stare, Ianto sauntered toward us. His grin told me that I wouldn’t like what he had to say.
CHAPTER THIRTY
Ryker
“It’s quiteamazing that the two lightning bearers in this realm have found each other, even if one of them is an aristocratic douchebag,” Ianto said as he stopped a few feet away.
The crowd tensed but tittered nervously as I glowered at the giant. I’d been right; I didn’t like what the man had to say.
When I didn’t immediately fry him, the crowd relaxed a little, though I was contemplating sending a lightning bolt up his ass. Ianto’s warm brown eyes twinkled with amusement as he grinned at me. In the glow of the torches set out around the encampment, shadows danced across his brown skin.
“And to have them together, in love… or at least I’m pretty sure they are,” Ianto continued.
I frowned at his words; what was he playing at? He knew what Ellery meant to me.
When I looked at the crowd again, excitement ran through them as they studied us. They weren’t sure what to make of us as we stood together with my hand on her shoulder.
I thought I’d made it clear what she meant to me, but there was a time when she wasn’t here, and there had been several fights between us. They could also think we were just fucking; it didn’t have to be love.
And while immortals rarely cared who screwed who, love was a deeper emotional bond that many respected.
I pulled Ellery closer. “Of course we are.”
When she rested her hand on my chest, gasps and ripples of excitement ran through the crowd. Luna and Callan stared at us before exchanging a look. Ianto’s smile grew while Tucker nodded.
“That can’t get out,” Ellery blurted. “No one can know, especially not his father. That would beawful.”
Some of the joy left the crowd, and when they looked at me again, the distrust in their eyes told me they didn’t like her words.Did they think I was lying about being in love with her? To what end?
But then, the nobility had lied to them, broken them, and torn apart their lives. They saw them as users and oppressors… and I was one of them.
I’d battled for Tempest in the Ghoul War, helped free them, and robbed Ivan with some of them, but I was still an aristocrat. My father was one of their worst oppressors, and they’d lost far too much to trust anyone with noble blood, even if I’d fought in the trenches with them.
Ellery was their beacon of hope and an unusual phenomenon revealed when they needed her most. And some of them questioned if I was only with her because of her ability and the fact that, with her at my side, I was stronger.
