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A shaky exhale escaped me.
“Then take me somewhere safe. Please. I’m tired of living in fear.” I swallowed back the tears that wanted to fall, and I hoped I hadn’t just damned us both.
CHAPTERTHREE
One of the men groaned,adding another level of apprehension to my decision.
“May I carry you?” Turik asked.
I nodded, desperate to leave quickly now that I’d decided. Turik didn’t feel the same need to rush. He approached me cautiously like he was waiting for me to lash out at him. When I did nothing, he carefully lifted me into his arms.
This wasn’t my first time accepting a fey ride. I knew what to expect. The strength in his hard arms. The heat radiating from his torso. The way he held me a little too close. I didn’t mind any of it. I just wished he would do something more than stare down at me. We needed to go.
I shifted impatiently in his arms.
“Am I hurting you?” he asked.
I shook my head as my gaze flicked to the pile of bodies. One of them was moving.
“We need to go now,” I whispered urgently.
“Hold on.” That was the only warning I got before he ran and jumped off the balcony.
A scream rose in my throat, but I choked on it a second later when we landed with a jolt.
“You are safe,” Turik said, taking off at a sprint, the speed of which had my eyes watering.
I tucked my face against his chest and let him do what he and his kind did best aside from killing infected—ensuring healthy humans stayed healthy. Especially the women. We were damn near sacred to them. So I held onto him as he ran exceptionally fast through the trees.
A few moans echoed in the distance, letting me know we weren’t alone in the woods. But I didn’t feel the same level of worry that I’d felt earlier when walking away from Tenacity. I knew Turik wouldn’t let anything happen to me. Not only was he faster and stronger than a human, but his kind also didn’t have a vindictive bone in their bodies.
The fey’s gentle souls were why other humans treated them even more cruelly than we did each other. The fey’s differences alienated them when all they wanted was acceptance. Turik’s words about safety and kindness hit me a second time as I realized he might have been talking about himself too.
I burrowed into his warmth and tried not to think for the next several minutes. Thinking led to doubt and guilt, and I couldn’t afford either. For better or worse, I had made a decision. Only time would tell if it was the right one.
The sudden lurch in my stomach indicated another jump and had me lifting my head just as Turik landed inside a very familiar recycled vehicle wall. I hadn’t given a thought to where he planned to take me. Anywhere away from Nat would have been good. Anywhere other than the community we’d been kicked out of just that morning.
“I can’t be here,” I said in a panic. “I was exiled.”
“Matt and June said you couldn’t live in Tenacity. They didn’t say you couldn’t live in Tolerance.”
“It’s the same thing, Turik. I can’t be here.”
He ignored me and kept walking while I scanned the unfamiliar houses for opening doors.
“Please, Turik. I had to suffer the shame of being kicked out once and never want to go through that again.”
“You won’t. No one will make you leave.” His arms tightened fractionally around me, and I wondered if he was trying to reassure himself or me.
I glanced at the houses again, but didn’t see any sign of people. Not a fey or a human. I’d held the impression that Tolerance was just as packed—with fey—as Tenacity had been with humans.
“Where is everyone?” I asked in a hush.
He grunted, which I knew meant he didn’t know, and it wasn’t reassuring. The absence of people increased the disquiet and insecurity I felt. Being in his arms helped take the edge off of some of it, though. I’d always found the fey presence comforting rather than disturbing, not that I’d ever let anyone know that.
Turik turned down another quiet side street and walked us to a beautiful two-story house with immaculate landscaping. Shifting my weight to one arm, he used the other to let us in.
The home was warm but just as quiet as the rest of the town.
