AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“No. But I didn’t care.” She shrugged restlessly. “I didn’t like going there, Gia. The house felt...wrong. Very wrong. I used to tell my mom that but she didn’t want to hear it. I remembered Ronna, though, and when Mom told me she could help me hide from the men who killed Carwyn, I was willing to do anything. I’d have died if I thought it would protect Wyn.”
She laughed and it was a broken, desperate sound.
“Be careful what you wish for, huh?”
In an abrupt shift of mood, she turned and grabbed onto Gia’s arms. “I can’t protect him. But if...no. No ifs. No more lies. Not even to myself. She’s been using me. And if she’s been using me, then all the lies I’ve told to myself about what my gut has told me...she’s hurt so many people, Gia. I won’t let her use me to hurt even more than I’ve already hurt. I won’t let her use me to get to my son, either. I don’t care what price I have to pay for that.”
“So.”
Sorin had come up behind Amy silently and although Gia had sensed, then seen him, Amy hadn’t. She jumped, muffling her cry behind her hand as she turned to face him.
But it wasn’t a cold, angry look on his face as he studied her.
Moving closer, he touched a gentle hand to her cheek. “It appears I’m right about that spine of yours, human.”
She hitched in a breath, but didn’t try to break away. “No. I’m every bit the coward. But I won’t let anybody use me again, not now that I know the truth. And I won’t risk my son.”
“What would you have Gia do for you?”
Gia scowled at him, but before she could tell him to let her and Amy settle the matter, Amy lifted her chin.
“I just want her to take Wyn and get him away from here. Keep him safe.”
“While you...do what?”
Amy’s bravado leaked away and she shifted her gaze from Sorin to the horizon and its slowly coming dawn.
“End this.” Her shoulders rose and fell on a ragged sigh. “I can’t escape Ronna. I know enough about the Fae to understand the truth of what the shade told me. She wouldn’t have lied. So I’m a threat to Wyn, Gia, others, for as long as I’m alive.”
“So you’ll just kill yourself?”
“I told you I’m a coward.” Amy said it bitterly.
“You sacrifice your life for your son,” Sorin said with unusual gentleness. “There is no greater act of love, Amy.”
He leaned closer and dipped his head. “But...wouldn’t you prefer to take a few of them with you?”
“THIS IS CRAZY,” GIAsaid in a low, insistent voice while Wyn and Amy talked.
Gia had done plenty of talking with Amy herself, but it had done no good.
Whatever it was Amy had seen in Sorin’s eyes during those few moments after he’d asked that question, it had cemented the change Gia had sensed taking place.
Amy had made her decision.
She was going to make a stand.
But not alone. Sorin was staying to fight at her side.
Because of that, Gia knew it wouldn’t be a massacre.
The dragon would live.
Amy, however, would not.
She couldn’t even be called trained.
Everything Ronna Greene had taught her had been through deception.
