Page 108 of Feralheart

Her lips thinned. “I agree.”

I forced myself to step back and handed her the tin. “Keep it. You’ll need it again.”

She took it, her fingers brushing mine. The contact was brief. It seared anyway.

“Why are you soaked through?” I asked again, struggling to maintain a normal tone. I wanted to make her tell me why she wasn’t comfortably settled in her bed instead of traipsing around the castle when someone wanted her dead.

“Contrary to belief, the elite don’t own our private time.”

“That doesn’t answer my question.”

“Why do you care?” she asked.

“I shouldn’t.”

“You’re damn right you shouldn’t.”

Yet I did.

“Two men tried to kill you,” I said.

“And you killed them.”

“I’d do it again.” My voice hollowed out.

“Why?”

Because the thought of anyone harming her made me want to rip through the world until nothing remained but us.

I couldn’t tell her that either.

I had the power to destroy her with one word. She knew it. I knew it. But she also knew I wouldn’t.

Her eyes drifted across my face before they dropped to my hands.

I looked down to find them still shaking. Or newly shaking.

When I looked back up, her expression had changed, though I couldn’t define it.

Something about her sitting on the kitchen counter, shivering, yet still defying me, was bravest thing I’d ever seen.

“You’re not going to die in the race,” I snarled.

“The odds suggest otherwise.”

“You shouldn’t use Lykor. He can barely fly.”

Her lips twitched, but she didn’t look away. “He’s all I have.”

“He’s broken.”

“So am I.”

He’d saved her life by shielding her with his body, but his wing needed time to heal, time he didn’t have. Racing him was suicide, though no other noble would notice or care.

“I’ll…see what I can do.”

Her chin lifted. “I’ve already taken care of it.”