Page 16 of Tell Them That I’m Coming

Thane’s lips come together, not quite a frown but almost. “I see.”

I shake my head. The butterfly flutters upward, then nestles on the top of my hair. I leave it, and when Binx lifts a paw, prepared to stretch up and bat the nearest wing, I murmur ‘no’ under my breath.

Thane moves easily, gracefully, coming to stand at my other side, amber eyes taking in the butterfly crown.

“You followed the queen’s butterflies,” he points out. “From your realm?”

From Brille Rouge, actually, but he doesn’t need to know the details. And queen’s butterflies… that must be how he refers to the monarch butterflies in his fae language, and how I’m somehow translating it. “Yes.”

His head tilts slightly. “I wonder why you would. What are you doing in Noctavara? The butterflies invited you, but you came. Humor me, Alana of Sombra. Why are you here?”

Should I tell him? My brain says I shouldn’t. My heart—my essence—says that I shouldn’t hide this from my mate. My gut says I should tell him the truth and see how he reacts to⁠—

“Rafe,” I admit, ignoring how Binx is chittering again, my soul-pet warning me against trusting the fae bandit too quickly. “I’ve come here because your soldiers took him from me and I’ve come to get him back.”

Another swish. Another move. Suddenly, Thane is on my other side, staring at my profile. “Your lover?”

Lover? I scoff out a laugh, even if I’m secretly pleased that Thane would come to that conclusion. Sure, he sounds more curious than jealous, but that’s better than him not caring at all.

“No,” I tell him. “Rafe is… he’s like my kin. A brother to me. He’s Sombran, too, but he was visiting a different demon realm when soldiers from this world stole him. They’d come for a clan of demonesses, but he protected them with a shadow barrier, leaving him to be the only one dragged into Noctavara.”

So far, at least. I only hope that, once Rafe was in this world, the soldiers didn’t go back for Katrin and her fellow seamstresses.

“So he has shadow magic?” asks Thane. “This Rafe of yours?”

“Sombra is a world of shadows. If you’re part demon or demoness, we all do to some degree. It’s how we survive.”

“And that’s how you made it to Noctavara.”

“Only because the butterflies opened the path for me,” I remind him, nodding to draw his attention to the butterfly that hasn’t left my hair yet. “Is that how you found me just now?”

In Nuit, all anyone had to do was follow the glowing white butterflies to track me down. And now, in Noctavara, it seems like it’s these strange Earth butterflies that keep appearing⁠—

“No.”

Oh. Wait. It’s the bond, isn’t it? He knows⁠—

“I didn’t have to follow the queen’s butterflies when I know the Shadowed Woods better than anyone,” explains Thane. “I knew which way you ran off to. I know the traps.”

I perch my hands on my hips. “You’re the reason I was hanging upside down like that?”

“I said I know the traps, Alana, not that I’m responsible for them. Or, at least, the one that had your skirts down by your ears.”

Because that’s so much better. And I really needed that reminder that he very well could’ve seen my cunt and my rear before he cut me down…

“So there’s more,” I’m guessing. “Traps, that is.”

“Plenty.”

Great.

“That’s why, if you stay with me,” he adds, his lilt almost seductive in his promise, “I’ll guarantee you’ll make it to the Court alive.”

Stay with him? Where did that come from? “Why would I do that?”

I wait for him to tell me that I’m his mate so of course I have to stay with him. If not that, then he’ll explain why a fae bandit who can’t rob me when all I have is a bitey Binx is interested in… what? Helping me?

And the Court? Why does he think I’m going to the Court?