Page 65 of Taken By Shadows

I folded my arms, but he began moving with the music. “You’d better get a handle on that jealousy, my Lord. Or people might think you care.”

“I do care.”

That caught me off guard.

“I care about what is mine,” he clarified. “And keeping it that way. Eryk is a snake.”

Kaed pulled me into him until our hips nearly met, but I pushed off him. “Eryk saved me when you abandoned me on the dance floor.”

A tempest of unspoken things swirled in Kaed’s eyes.

“What did Denora want?” I wasn’t sure he’d even tell me, but there was something else in his expression that I needed to understand.

Silence answered me.

“I’m leaving,” I said, pulling away. “If you won’t tell me things and insist on ruining my night, then I’m leaving.”

Kaed snatched me back to his body. “Just dance with me.” He said, nearly without moving his lips. “Pretend for me now.”

“What’s going on?” I said a little quieter.

Something had shifted. I could sense it rolling off him in waves.

“Denora brought news of Hayden.” I waited as he exhaled a tight breath. “My brother—”

“Hart?” His eyes snapped to me. I had been listening.

“Yes, Hart”—he extruded his brother’s name with considerable effort—“has been dispatched to search the Western Corner for the faebane Denora brought my father.”

Understanding settled into my skin, and black ice filled my veins at his words. Would his brother search all the way to Shadowfall? Few ventured there. Ever. But if someone knew there was something worth finding in the Western Corner, they might not leave any stone unturned.

“You won’t be leaving the city,” he gritted out and looked away from me.

“I know that. Yesterday made that perfectly clear.”

“No.” His eyes were piercing as they held me. “I mean, you can’t leave because Hayden—the entire Northern Corner—has closed its borders. Denora delivered the faebane, and in an instant, my father reacted. He’s going to stop all trade to Viverna and everywhere else. And when news gets here of his actions, this city will close her borders and her gates in kind. I can’t leave until I’ve smoothed this out.”

“Over the faebane? Why?”

We’d stopped dancing.

“Until he gets what he believes is the advantage, he will cut off everyone else to try to put them at a disadvantage. If they’re worried about supplies and trade routes, they won’t be spending resources looking for what he wants.”

His father sounded like a bastard.

“He is a bastard.”

I practically snorted. “Reading thoughts now is a magic you possess?”

“No.” He grinned. “But it’s not hard to think that of my father.”

“How long?” My skin prickled with worry. How long would this keep Kaed here? Me. Would it make slipping away when I needed to more difficult?

“I don’t know. If you give me the location of the faebane, we can end this now, before it—”

“I can’t, Kaed. I can’t,” I said with a heaviness.

We stared at each other for a long moment. Kaed’s hand flexed on my waist, and his jaw tightened. I thought I might see him blaze with anger, but he just took a steadying breath.