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I wrapped my fingers around Aaron’s palm. “I’m fine. Want todance?”
“I’ll never turn down that request from you.” He set his other hand on my waist and twirled me around, fast enough that a laugh jolted out of me despite myself. Then he pulled me close to him, both of us turning together with the melody spilling through theair.
“How soon can you reach out to the fae monarch?” I asked. I couldn’t forget that reason for coming here either. I wasn’t going to be able to feel right until I’d gotten some sort of justice forMom.
“I already have,” Aaron said. “I sent one of my people to her citadel about an hour ago. We should hear the answer by tomorrow.” He squeezed my hand tighter. “And if she tries to refuse to hear us, believe me, I’ll make sure she changes hertune.”
Chapter 13
Ren
The sky had deepenedto near-black over the garden, twinkling with a dusting of stars. I tipped my head to them, letting their faint light soak into me, as I meandered down thepath.
The avian kin celebration was only just starting to wind down. Music and chatter still carried over the hedges from the courtyard. I’d finally slipped away through one of the arches into this quieter space a few minutes ago. Sometimes a girl needed room tobreathe.
The warm, salty air was such a relief after all that time in the mountain’s cold. I closed my eyes, drinking it in. A faint breeze rustled through the flowers and hedges around me. A sweet perfume rose up from the blossoms to mingle with the ocean scent. The crash of the waves sounded from the other side of the house, just barely audible to my shifterears.
As I breathed in again, another scent reached my nose. Something darker, earthier with a prickle of pine. I knew before I opened my eyes that I’d see Westnearby.
The wolf shifter was standing by a wooden latticework. A flowering vine climbed across the interlaced slats over a stone bench like the ones around the courtyard. West was facing away from me, toward the far end of the garden and the top of the estate wall visible beyond it. His hands were slung in the pockets of his jeans, and his head was tipped to the side at a thoughtfulangle.
I hesitated, the mate-bond urging me to go to him while what was probably common sense suggested I leave him be. If he’d wanted company, he wouldn’t be all the way over here while the party was still happening. And it wasn’t as if he’d ever acted all that excited to spend time withme.
But maybe that was exactly why I should go to him. He was a jerk to me some of the time—okay, a lot of the time—but I could understand why. I’d seen how much he cared about his kin. The shifters’ dependence on the ties between dragon shifter and alphashadgone terribly wrong after my mother’sdisappearance.
He felt the same draw I did. Maybe being a jerk was the only way he knew how to fend that desire off while he made hisdecision.
He should know that I wanted to give him a chance, at least. That I would do everything I could for his kin as well as Aaron’s and the other guys’ if he met me halfway. If he decided to forsake the mate-bond and look to form a new one separate from tradition, it wasn’t going to be becauseIpushed himaway.
And maybe a little part of me was remembering that one kiss he’d given me, after the rogues’ first ambush. The passion in it that had left my head spinning. And the way he’d looked at me the other night in thetent...
My skin flushed a little just at thememory.
I ambled around a clump of red and pink rose bushes and a magnolia tree. I wasn’t trying to be quiet, and West could probably smell my presence just as well as I’d smelled his, but it still startled me a little when hespoke.
“Did being the center of attention get a little old, Sparks?” he said without turningaround.
I rolled my eyes at his back, even though he couldn’t see my expression. “I spent most of my life practicingnotdrawing attention. I think it’ll be a while before stuff like this feels totallycomfortable.”
He made a non-committal sound. Well, he hadn’t told me to take off. That was some kind ofprogress.
I walked up beside him, peering in the same direction he was looking. “Don’t you trust Aaron’s sentries to keep a close enough eye onthings?”
“You can’t be careful enough with the fae,” West said. “I heard he’s already sent someone to request the parlay. She has to know you’re here, and where we were before now. She’ll know what the request isabout.”
“Do you think she already knows some of her people killed my mother? Do you think it was heridea?” My chest tightened. If the ruler of the fae had ordered the murder of the ruler of the shifters... That would be an act of all-out war, wouldn’t it? Why would they hate us enough to dothat?
“It’s unlikely,” West admitted, to my relief. “The last thing the fae are is stupid. But the monarch will have set the tone of conversation that made her underlings think it was a good idea. And I have trouble believing seven years could have gone by without word getting back to her. But she’s stayed quiet. No interest in filling usin.”
“What will happen if they decide they want to start some kind of war?” I asked. The image of the fae blasting Mom with their magic flashed through my mind. I shivered. “Can we really fightback?”
West’s mouth curled into a grim smile. “Shifters are strong. It takes at least a few fae to tackle just one of us, weaklings like that weasel rogue aside. And there are a lot more of us than there are of them. We’d give them a good fight. But that doesn’t mean we should be begging forone.”
“I don’twantto fight,” I said. “I just want some answers. I want the fae who killed my mom to face some kind of consequences. I don’t think that’s asking alot.”
“You don’t know the fae,” Westsaid.
In the pale moonlight, his handsome face looked suddenly haunted. Maybe I didn’t know the fae yet, but it was clear he did. The pain I could sense echoing through him made my own heart squeeze. I swallowedthickly.
