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Too long ago.
“What’s an urrtolo?” I asked her, pressing for details. “Me and Teris—we’re mates. He’s my mate. If he dies, I die. Not that I’m worried about me. I just want him to be okay.” The words spewed out, my mind too overwhelmed and exhausted to process correctly.
“I know, I smelled him on your skin,” she said softly. “You’re both going to be fine. An urrtolo is a root that can be made into a tea that cleanses a fae’s system. It works on poison, and koveko, and a bunch of other things. Nev convinced one of the men start a garden of them after everything that happened with the female fae.”
A relieved breath rushed out of me. “Why did he lie, then? He said the mud and blood would heal him.”
“It kept him alive. I’m sure he just didn’t want you to worry. The male fae are particular about keeping their females comfortable—especially the seelies. They’re wilder than the unseelies.”
I hadn’t seen that, but it had been a long, long time since I’d spent any amount of time with the seelies.
“What happened?” another female voice spoke behind us, and my head jerked to the side as Presley strode up to us. “Damn, Nai. You look like shit.”
“Teris killed one of the new dragons, and ingested some of its blood. Apparently, they’re poisonous to us,” Mare explained quickly. “Ervo sent someone after an urrtolo, to cleanse the poison. Naomi flew a long time without eating or sleeping to get him back here.”
Presley gave a long whistle, eyeing me closely. Her nostrils flared a bit, and she blinked. “You’re mated?”
My eyes closed.
“They are,” Mare said for me.
“We knew each other, before Aeven found me. We were in love,” I whispered. “He’s why I didn’t want Aev—I was waiting for him to come after me. But he never did. He saw me meet Aeven, and thought the bond made me want him.”
Both girls were silent for a long, long moment.
My knees knocked together again, and Presley ducked under my other arm, holding my waist with Mare to keep me upright.
“I didn’t know that,” Presley said quietly.
“No one knew that,” Ervo said.
I opened my eyes, and found the phoenix studying me. His forehead was wrinkled, his eyebrows knitted together, and his eyes bright, as if everything was starting to click.
“You’re why he wouldn’t settle for Sunny when he knew she wasn’t in love with him,” Mare whispered.
I dipped my head in a tiny nod to confirm what she’d realized.
“I didn’t know the bastard had it in him,” another male voice mused. When I turned my head, I saw Nev striding up, hand-in-hand with Fovea. Her expression was more content than I’d ever seen it, and her free hand was on her abdomen. I remembered what Teris had said about her probably being pregnant.
“If he’d told anyone, there would’ve been war,” Ervo told him. “We lost too many fae to jealousy even when we thought she was unclaimed. If he’d claimed her…”
“More men would’ve died.”
“And he would’ve been killed by the seelie who wanted her,” Ervo confirmed.
“He loves fighting, though, doesn’t he?” Presley asked.
“Fighting for fun or distraction are much different than fighting for your life,” Nev said simply.
“Welcome to the Wild Hunt,” Mare told me, flashing me a small smile.
I bit my lip.
“What happened to Teris?” another male voice called out. When I looked past Presley, I saw Priel and North joining the crowd. The Wild Hunt may not have cared much about leading, but they did stick together, and I had to give them props for that.
“Bit one of the new dragons, got poisoned by its blood,” Fovea tossed back. “The urrtolo is on its way.”
North was tucked tightly against the blond hellhound’s side, his hand wrapped possessively around her hip. She looked more awake and alive than I’d ever seen her before, not that it meant much since I’d only seen her a few times.
