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“Actually, she found me. In a cell beneath the castle. She’s the only reason I’m alive.”
Fin stares in wonder at the door then shakes his head. “We all thought you dead, Rafferty. Every single one of us.”
“You went back to the camp? After leaving?”
Fin’s eyes darken momentarily. Then he shakes his head. “The tavern is clear. Let’s go down to the kitchen and get a drink.”
“Soldiers?”
He shakes his head. “They all left, even the ones planning on staying. Taranus called them all to the other side of Faerie.”
I glance back at the door then nod. “Let’s go down, then.”
We walk in silence, and by the time we reach the bottom, Marie has already filled two mugs with ale. She offers me one and Fin the other. “I’ll be out there if ye’ need me.” She squeezes his hand gently then leaves without another word.
The two of us sit together on stools, and I try to wait for him to speak, but my gaze drops again to the two black beads in his braided hair. “Who do you grieve?”
Fin’s jaw tightens, and he takes a deep drink before setting the mug down. While his eyes shimmer with tears, he turns to me. “We’d made it away from the camp,” he begins. “Meena and me.”
His voice cracks at the mention of his mate, and my heart plummets to my feet. She’d been pregnant last I’d seen her; a new development.
“That fucker found us and killed her.”
I stand so quickly my stool clatters to the ground. “Taranus?” I choke out, my voice cracking.
He nods, and a tear slips down his face and into the stubble on his cheek. “He killed her right in front of me. Would have killed me, too, had Karver not shown up and gotten me out of there. Not that it matters. She was mine, Rafferty. My true mate. My one—” His voice cracks.
Red-hot rage burns through my body as magic pushes to the surface in desperation for it to be freed, obliterating all logical sense.
Kill.One word. One word and I can kill him. I can kill Taranus then have enough sense to end myself before the dark magic can hurt anyone.
“I still see her in my dreams,” he chokes out. “I was so weak that I could not save her.”
“Taranus is the one responsible for her death, not you.”
“I couldn’t believe him. When he’d said what they’d done to you. Your wings, Raffe…the fucker stole your wings!”
“He stole your mate,” I whisper. “And that is so much worse than my bloody wings.” My muscles quiver with the need for blood to be spilled—greater than anything I’ve ever experienced. Meena was a ray of sunlight; a bright soul who’d been so happy to move forward with her life—her family.
Guilt weighs on me for the very fact that I didn’t let Fin kill him the first time he’d shown interest in the man’s mate.
Joaquin was right for what he said in that cell: I was weak. But no more.
Fin nods, shutting his eyes tightly as tears stream down his cheeks. “I know Meena wouldn’t wish for me to lose my head, but I’ve been trying to find a way to get to him ever since. I’m going to kill him, Rafferty. I’m going to kill your brother.” The look on his face, the steadiness of his gaze, makes me wonder if he’s worried I’ll ask him not to.
But we’re way past me protecting that fucker.
“There is not a force in this world or any other that will prevent me from putting Taranus in the ground. What he’s done to all of us is unforgivable, so if you’re here asking for my permission to claim vengeance for your wife, you never needed it.” I clasp a hand on Fin’s shoulder. “All I ask is that you allow me the honor of fighting alongside you.”
Fin purses his lips and nods. “It is not the only reason I came,” he says after a few moments of brief silence.
“Then what is it?”
“The Rebellion has scattered,” he says. “There is no one to lead us, no one to keep us fighting.”
“No one stepped up?”
He shakes his head. “Once the camp was decimated, the ones who survived ran. I went looking for them after—after Meena and discovered that they were all gone.”
