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Chapter4
Ijerked my head from side to side until enough skin on the hand stifling me slipped into my mouth.
And I bit. Hard.
“What the hell is your problem!”
The hand dropped from my mouth and I jerked around, coming face to face with Nicole.
“Nicole? What are you doing accosting me in a hallway?” I yelled.
She narrowed her eyes. “Certainly not thinking you’d bite me. I wanted to talk in secret and thought you’d be able to tell it was me, you jerk. You’ve got teeth like a dragon!”
A pause. One pause before we both started laughing. Mine was partly from relief that I wasn’t, in fact, being kidnapped or hauled off to some dark part of the Unseelie castle again.
“Maybe I let my training kick in a little too well,” Nicole said as she shrugged.
My eyebrows shot up. “A little?”
She grinned at me. “Well, what are you doing wandering around? I thought you had tea time?” She curtseyed.
Shoving into her, we made our way down the stairwell and out into the sunshine of the courtyard.
My body locked up.
This courtyard.
Nicole seemed to be affected too. I wasn’t sure either of us had been out here since we were almost beheaded.
I wrapped my arms around my waist.
Nicole’s face grew hard, lip curling upward. Looking away, my feelings were less of anger, more of fear.
But I was always weaker than Nicole.
“At least no one would expect us to hang out here. I don’t think,” I said.
She nodded, walking over to one of the columns across the stone opening that reflected the sun with such a bright shine, I had to shield my eyes as I watched her sit down on the concrete railing.
I followed, taking a seat next to her.
“The king’s feeder, Phillip, cut our tea short with news.”
Nicole didn’t look like she was waiting for me to continue. “About how he’s leaving?”
“What?” I asked, shaking my head in disbelief. “Why do you think that?”
“I don’t think it, I know. Why do you think I was coming to find you?” She looked out from where we sat at the rolling hills Captain Coltrain had ridden hard through, pulling up to the courtyard to save us just in time from the chaos and magic that had overtaken the Seelie.
“How do you know?” I pressed. For having something to tell me, she was unusually quiet.
“I know things.” Finally, she pulled herself away from her thoughts enough to converse with me. “The spies returned that were sent out to Dukesburg last week. Aron was pulled from bed last night and returned in the morning early. He told me that the king would have to go.”
“And Noah?” I asked, half holding my breath.
She shook her head. “They can’t both be sent out at the same time unless it’s a war right here in the Unseelie backyard, I guess. No, just the king.”
“He’s old though.” I leaned against the column behind me, trying to process everything.
