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“I don’t have a pack. I was banished from Appalachia and thanks to you, no new pack would take me in.” Temper infused each word, hot enough to burn.
He didn’t dare mention Greylock, not after what Phoenix had told him.
“I’m sorry,” he said quietly.
She didn’t even seem to hear him. “And I’m not as weak as other outcasts would be. Being a fucking leech, I’m not solely dependent on the power of the pack to survive.”
A fucking leech.
You’re Leanan Sídhe. A leech. You’re a fucking succubus and you’ve been using everything I feel for you against me.
The words he’d thrown at her a decade ago had haunted him. He’d spent much of the past decade defending the angry boy he’d been, because she hadn’t told him. Although he’d come to learn more about the various Nightdwelling Fae and realized he’d been brutally wrong in his initial assessment, he’d held onto his anger, because she’d lied.
Only she hadn’t.
“I owe you an apology for that,” he said, holding her pale green eyes when all he wanted to do was look away in shame. “I was wrong. About all of it, Zee. I’m sorry.”
“Fine. You can go now.”
The manic light in her eyes told him that she wanted him to do just that—leave. But the taut way she held herself communicated something else. She knew he wouldn’t.
“I’d be happy to go. As long as you’re ready?”
* * * * *
HER BODY WAS ALMOSTnumb with fatigue by the time Niko stopped for the night.
Zee had been tempted to tell him to get the hell out, to refuse to go anywhere. But the stubborn light in his eyes had told her exactly how well that would go. As she had no pack, she did ultimately fall under Niko’s aegis. Her only out would be taking Meridia up on her offer of sanctuary and she wasn’t going to risk some sort of political fallout between Appalachia and the Atlantic Atargarians.
She had taken great pleasure in telling Meridia there was no need to have anybody ship her belongings to her. If you need to rent out my place, I understand. My things, if you want to just put them in storage, I’m okay with that. I don’t know what’s going to happen yet.
Niko hadn’t liked that she wasn’t giving up her life in Provincetown to move back to Durham-Starfell. He also hadn’t liked that she’d only brought her backpack and a single suitcase with a matching overnight bag.
Some small petty part of her wished she’d brought even less, but she had to have clothes. She’d run from Durham-Starfell with nothing but the clothes on her back and she wasn’t going to scrape by like that again—ever.
The hotel’s sign bore a discreet symbol in the corner and Zee studied it as Niko slowed to turn in. It held three letters, all stylized to blend together into an elegant whole.
T-A-N.
Therians. Atargarians. Nightdwellers.
The hotel had been designed or renovated to comfortably accommodate each of the Pretern races, as well as humans. Too many human-run hotel franchises were the exact opposite, the walls too thin, cleaning products with too harsh a scent—or not used stringently enough to erase scents from previous guests. T.A.N-approved hotels cost more but they were worth it and this was one of the best chains in the US.
Not that she’d ever stayed in one on her own, but Meridia had dragged her along on a couple of “girls weekends” and this particular brand was the Atargarian Regnar’s personal favorite.
“You’re smiling.”
Niko’s voice jerked her back to the present and the grin she hadn’t been aware of wobbled and fell away. He’d parked in front of the valet stand and she shoved the door open before one of the uniformed employees could cross to her.
The man froze in his tracks as he caught sight of Niko.
Zee scowled in annoyance as she opened the back door to grab her overnight bag and the matching, small suitcase.
Niko was at her side when she turned and she went still, the awareness in her body blotting out everything but the man in front of her.
“I can get it.”
He started to reach for her bag. Clutching it tight, she shoved past him, using her body weight to push him aside.
