Page 117 of Winter Gods & Serpents

He leaned in again offering a tissue. “It’s supposed to go down your throat not up your nose, darling.” The deep enunciation on the last word sent a shiver down my spine.

“Funny,” I sneered.

He nonchalantly nodded in that stern non giving expression and said, “Thank you.”

We finished at the tavern, my stomach heavy and my eyes muggy with sleep even though last night had probably been the longest I had slept in years.

Brisk roared in movement while we headed to city hall where the other two waited us. I could sense Cai’s tension in the air the closer we got.

“Snow,” Mal shouted, running in our direction and gathering me up in a hug, spinning us both around. “Cynth, what has happened to you too?”

“I didn’t know you could miss me, Mal.”

“Cai almost ripped my head out of my body a few dozen times. I might say I’ve never missed anyone that much in my life. Leash the boy.”

“Snowlin,” Cai called loudly, practically galloping in my direction, full off berating and worry.

Mal took a few steps back murmuring, “Hells know no fury like a friend who takes hide and seek too seriously.”

“Where the blessed gods have you been? And you send a button? A button?” he repeated loudly throwing the gold circle down to my feet. “I thought that damn morph had plucked it up from your dead body.”

“He first thought it was candy,” Mal whispered from behind me and I crutched my eyes shut withholding my amusement.

“Cai—” I began taking a step back from him.

“Oh no, you don’t get to do that with me. We talked about this, we were to stay together yet you split, and I turn to see no one behind me.”

“We were caught in a Malefic mist and I was with her too, remember?” Kilian jumped in my defence approaching us.

“Ooh,” Mal whispered, “bad idea, bad idea.”

Cai straightened, cocking his head back taking Kilian in his predatory look. “You being with her worried me more than that damned mist. Now. Back. Off,” he warned, but the Adriatian did not even bat an eyelid.

I went between the two, nudging Kilian to move away. I could not risk Cai starting a tornado in the middle of the city and Kilian snapping his neck at the click of fingers. “It will not happen again Cai, but we both know what would have happened if they had not been caught by us.”

“You should have ended it right at it will not happen again. We agreed, you run with your plans, but I would be with you at all times.” He cupped my shoulders. “While our feet are in these lands you are not to be out of sight, understood?”

“Noted,” I backed, lifting my hands in surrender and he left towards the soldiers inside the building.

Kilian frowned in my direction.

“What?”

“You got scolded like a child, if he wanted you safe, he should have kept you away from here to start with.”

“No one can stop me from doing what I want, not even him and he is family Kilian, he can scold me all he wants. I had made a promise to him last time and I broke it. He likes to have me under his watch, thinks that I will perish in thin air…like all the rest of our kind and his family. I never want to cause him pain again, yet I did.” Saying those words out loud reminded me how selfish I had become. I’d hurt Cai more than anyone would ever know.

“All that matters is that you are safe.”

“All that matters to me is that he is okay, yet he is not.”

Kilian took me in silence and almost in understanding too. “He will be.”

“I don’t wish to interrupt this very intimate stare down you too are doing, but here is an urgent matter,” Mal said, bringing our attention to him. “There were Empaths among them, Kil.”

“I know, she got inflicted by one,” he pointed his head in my direction.

Mal’s eyes almost popped out of their sockets. “What?” he asked in disbelief. Approaching, he took my face in his hands, examining me like a potion glass. The brothers shared the habit I see. “Impossible,” he said, frowning to his brother before turning to me, “I have not the slightest idea how you were able to contain pain infliction, but I still have to pull it out, it is like a mill wheel rotating at your life mana, will never leave you while you’re alive.”