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“I should have known they wouldn’t be able to hold onto you very long,” Noah laughed dryly.
“And I should have known you wouldn’t listen to me, even when I had a good point that you weren’t safe here.”
A few Seelie attacked and Noah and I executed our movements like we’d been training together forever. We used pressure from each other to maneuver and turn as we fought, never leaving the other person without a man at his back.
“I’m safer than you,” Noah said as two Seelie dropped before him.
“I don’t…" I huffed as I wielded my sword, slashing the chest of the fae in front of me. “…think so. I’ve been holding back in training.”
The taunting was helping me ease myself away from the fear that was begging to come out, crawling slowly up my throat. This was war. This was a battle unlike any other I’d imagined. And we were in the middle of it.
Fighting for our lives.
A sword must have hit Noah because he fell to one knee and grunted.
“Are you okay?”
He groaned through clenched teeth. “Don’t stop, we can do this.”
More Seelie were coming toward us, and since all of the Unseelie were otherwise engaged and involved in their own fights, it didn’t seem like anyone would be able to help us.
A horn sounded, stopping the Seelie in their tracks. It blew in three long spurts.
“Retreat!”
The Seelie that had been fighting us obeyed instantly. Noah stood up and moved to my side as we watched them run away.
And through the sea of bloodied warriors, I saw Landon. He saluted me across the battlefield, and I knew that wasn’t the last time I’d see him. But he cried out a few more times to his men to retreat.
The Unseelie cheered, whooping and hollering, holding their weapons in the air as the battle ended, albeit suddenly. But the retreat happened.
Noah’s arms wrapped around me and he looked me up and down. “It may not be a victory, but it’s a respite. When we go back, Aron will have a whole new strategy for training based on how the Seelie fought today.” He held me at arm’s length before pulling me close. “Are you okay?”
I nodded against his chest. Laughing with a giddiness I hadn’t felt before. Like all the adrenaline and fear mixed together and came out as the completely wrong emotion.
“Noah, we need to move quickly,” I said as I remembered there was an assassin hopefully still unconscious.
He looked at me, waiting for an explanation.
“I saw the person who attacked you as I was coming back to our side. They were knocked out. We can see who it was if we hurry.”
“Lead the way.” Noah’s excited face fell almost instantly into a grim look.
It was time for answers.
I ran back to where the dragon had picked me up. Whatever the hissing sound had been, it hadn’t lasted forever on the creatures, because Landon’s little pet was not in the spot where I’d escaped it.
But the hooded figure was. Still unmoving against the ground where I’d left him.
“Time to see who tried to kill you,” I said.
I reached down, yanking off the hood, which woke the assassin with a start.
A woman.
The assassin was a woman.
She leered at me, but Noah was prepared this time and he straddled her, gripping her throat as I sat by, stunned at how quickly he bounded into action.
