“Hiding out?” I murmured.
“No. I mean, sort of.” She leaned back into my embrace and blew out a breath, and I felt her heartbeat level out, her tense muscles relaxing just a fraction. “Okay, fine. I’m totally hiding out.”
“Consider yourself busted.”
“Busted, huh?” she asked playfully. “Does this mean you’ll have to cuff me, Detective Alvarez?”
Dios miothe thought of Gray in handcuffs… I bit her earlobe and groaned, an ache blooming below the belt that was only going to get worse. It’d felt like a thousand lifetimes since I’d had her to myself. Since I’d felt the press of her warm body, heard the soft sounds she made as we…
Cold shower, Alvarez. It’s gonna be a long night.
She turned around in my arms and slid her hands over my shoulders. Her eyes were full of a new ferocity, a purpose. But beneath that, I sensed the current of her trepidations.
And I marveled.
The woman who’d chased me to the very edge of death and snatched me out of its jaws, breaking every last rule in the universe to bring me home… That same woman was still reluctant to claim her birthright. To stand up and claim herself.
How could she not know that the witches would follow her anywhere? ThatIwould follow her anywhere.
“What if I don’t know what I’m doing?” she whispered, answering my unspoken questions. “What if I say all the wrong things, or make the wrong choices, or lead them astray, or cause even more infighting? What if they hate me?”
“What if they do?”
The question took her aback, and she blinked up at me, surprised. “Then… then… I don’t know.”
“No, you don’t, and neither do I. But here’s something Idoknow. If you don’t try, if you don’t tell everyone what’s coming and convince them that when the shit hits the fan, we all need to be standing on the same side, then wewillfail. Wrong choices and infighting and their opinions of you will be the least of our problems.” I grabbed her hands in mine and pressed a kiss to each palm, trying to send her all the love I could. To make her feel it. “This is life or death,querida.For all of us. You know better than most what we’re up against.”
She shuddered, and I saw the fears play out across her eyes. Hunters, dark fae, hybrids, perpetual winter, imprisonment, all the other things Liam had warned us about—most of them invisible and probably impossible to defeat.
“I don’t say this to frighten you,” I said. “I say it to remind you that you’ve already faced down a lot of those things, and you’ve come out swinging every time. Every day, your magic gets stronger, and so does this.” I pressed my hand flat against her chest, feeling the steady beat of her heart.
Gray closed her eyes, blowing out another breath. After a beat, she turned away from me again, refocusing on her ice cube trays. “I guess I just need some time to figure out what to say.”
“Youwillfigure it out, though. I know you will. Gray, you’re—”
“Alvarez, you got a second?” Hobb’s voice cut in from the doorway. “Colebrook spotted something we need to check out on foot.”
Liam had set off in his raven form a couple of hours ago to check out the area from above, keeping a particular eye out for anything that suggested we’d been followed or tracked. Fortunately for us, any attackers would have to come in through the forest, which was dense and slippery and difficult to traverse, or along the beach, which meant they’d be spotted quickly.
Assuming we could see them.
Still, Liam’s bird’s eye view would come in handy. The shoreline up here was similar to the one near the original prison, with lots of rocky outcroppings and cave systems perfect for hiding.
“Be right with you, Hobb.” I turned my attention back to Gray, hoping to give her one more kiss, one more vote of confidence.
Butmi brujitawas already gone, the ice cube trays abandoned on the counter half full.
Twenty-Eight
GRAY
Even hidden away in the last bedroom in the farthest corner of the second floor, the ocean roaring all around me, Sunshine and Sparkle panting at the foot of the bed, I still couldn’t drown out the sounds of the voices. Still couldn’t breathe under the unspoken weight of the expectations. Under myownexpectations.
Sitting on the bed I’d claimed, I stared at the Six of Wands card in my hand. In the deck that Emilio had given me, the card featured a man standing on top of a mountain behind a massive lion. In one hand he held a crystal ball, in the other, a flame-tipped wand. Five wands surrounded him, and overhead, two ravens circled in a blood-red sky.
The man in the card looked much more confident—not to mention qualified—than I felt, but the message was clear: I needed to be fearless. Bold.
I felt it inside me. I truly did. Deirdre was right—the time had come. All of us could feel it.
