‘Yes. She was badly hurt. Thrown from the ridge and beaten. Stabbed.’
‘Who?’ Morgan snarls, his muscles coiling in fury.
I let my body relax against his. ‘Some of the fae lured me there, but they ran off. It was four human men. They knew where to find me. They had healing potions with them to take when Fate hurt them back.’
Morgan’s arms tighten around me as I speak.
‘There was a conjure worked upon her,’ Locke continues when I fall silent. ‘Her injuries couldn’t be seen, nor scented. She was unconscious. I thought it was just cold and tiredness. I had no idea until I got her here that she was badly hurt.’
I frown. I hadn’t remembered any of that. ‘Voss.’
All eyes snap to me.
‘What?’ Jak asks, his tone lethal.
‘It was Voss,’ I say again.
‘You said you didn’t remember,’ Locke says and I hear him standing, putting on his clothes.
‘I don’t,’ I say. ‘But he…he has that power.’
Jak’s eyes close, as if he doesn’t truly want to ask the question, but he does.
‘How do you know that, Bryn?’
‘During the interrogation…he beat me. He found out what I was and hurt me to prove it. He took healing vials so that he could keep doing it even when Fate retaliated, just as those men did.’
‘Bryn,’ Morgan rumbles, horror in his countenance when I look up at him. ‘Why didn’t you tell us?’
I give him a sad smile. ‘Because your positions here seemed as precarious as mine, and because he made it so that no one would know. Who would have believed me?’
I pull out of his embrace. ‘Lia suspected. She gave me a healing potion when she took my hand. I drank it later in the cottage.’
‘Why didn’t she say anything?’ Morgan snarls.
‘Likely for the same reasons. The Harbinger may be powerful, but Lia is seen as a sentinel, a guard to the Underhill. Most have never even seen what she can do, and because she’s human, she’s been kept off the councils. She has little political power, regardless of her friends...’
Locke stops speaking and the males are silent.
'I will kill every single one of them,' Morgan suddenly snarls.
Remembering the man from the alley and his disappearance, I give Morgan a genuine smile.
He would destroy all my enemies for me if I needed him to.
I hug him hard, and his arms come up to hold me closer.
But, despite what he would do to protect me and how deserving those men are of Morgan’s brand of justice, I’m glad we won’t be going back to Halsford tonight. I think all three of them would do violence if they got their hands on my attackers.
I might as well.
'This is from Gwen,' Jak says, putting the pack he’s carrying on the floor and pulling a dark, homespun dress carefully over my head. 'It should fit you well enough. Now, come. We’ve tarried too long.'
'How?' I ask. ‘Did the fae give you one of those amulets that summons the Breach?’
‘No,’ Morgan shakes his head. ‘I don’t think they know about this. Perhaps that’s why Lia told us not to return to the village tonight.’
He shrugs.
