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I turn toward her—this human woman who cares for the damned likes of me. “What about me?”
“Do you not sleep?”
“I do.”
“Then why don’t we take turns keeping watch? I can sit beside you and wake you if anything seems out of place.”
“You need your sleep.”
“So do you,” she argues, her jaw tightening with her stubbornness.
“Very well. After dinner, you will sleep for a few hours, and I will wake you.”
“No. You will sleep first. I just took a power nap and feel great.” Getting to her feet, she crosses the ground and kneels before the pack. After digging around in it a few minutes, she withdraws a loaf of bread, tears it in half, then tears that in half and hands one side to me. “We should conserve.”
“I agree.” It’s not something most fae would have thought about, let alone a human woman, yet she has the mind of a fighter.
Her disease, I suppose.
A life alone, maybe.
After reaching into the pack again, she withdraws a small pouch and offers it to me. “I saw him add some jerky—or what looked like jerky—in here.”
Opening the pouch, I peer inside then withdraw a few pieces. “Eat what you need, we can always hunt more.”
“Hunt? As in—”
“There are plenty of animals out here we can eat,” I tell her, enjoying the way her eyes widen far too much than is surely allowed.
“I once ate a rat,” she tells me, nose scrunching. “A homeless man cooked it for me one night when I was shivering under a bridge.”
The visual image of her alone—cold—it angers me. What kind of parents would abandon their baby to such a horrible fate? “No rats,” I promise. “Though I do prepare a delicious rabbit if my men’s approval was any indication.”
She smiles softly. “You miss them. Your people.”
“More than I can say.”
“What about the others still in the castle?”
My mind drifts to Heelean, to Bea and the others forced to remain in such a horrible position. “I will rescue them once I have my men and weapons.”
The sun begins to dip, casting us in shadows, so I lean forward and lift the piece of flint I managed to find buried in the dirt. After lifting a rock, I begin to slam them together until sparks fly against the kindling.
Flames burn to life, devouring the smaller twigs and spreading to the larger ones.
Soon, we’re both sitting in the amber glow of the firelight.
“Can I ask you something?” Ember is not looking at me but rather at the skirt of her dress as she smooths it out.
“Of course.”Anything to hear your voice, my tormenter.
“Griffin told me what Taranus did to you.”
I swallow hard as my wounded soul cracks, yet again. “He told you of my wings, then?”
She nods.
“Taranus meant to humiliate me, to stifle the strength of the Rebellion. He knelt me before my men and removed my wings. He shaved my head, cutting my hair to the scalp, but he did not douse the spark,” I assure her. “The Rebellion was never built on one man but on the strength of many. I’ve no doubt that, in my absence, another rose to take over.”
