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I sucked in a deep breath of air at the sudden hit of silence. It had felt good to talk to someone, even Teris. Even if he didn’t want me. Even if I couldn’t stop myself from pissing him off.
But what did it mean, that he’d never lost a fight with Nev?
Everyone knew he’d lost.
Unless…
Had he thrown the fight?
There was no way he could throw it that convincingly, was there? The female fae were warriors; they would see right through it if he hadn’t taken it seriously or given his all.
…Right?
Two
When morning came around,and I sat up, Teris was already leaned up against a tree and glaring at me.
“Nice to see you too,” I mumbled, rubbing sleep out of my eyes as I untangled myself from the bush I’d slept in. My hair got stuck, and I swore as I tried to untangle the dark, forever-long strands from the branches and leaves.
“I need to cut this shit off,” I muttered to myself, yanking, tugging, and ripping at it. It was thick, and much longer than I’d ever kept it back on Earth. But it had started growing much faster after I came to Vevol, which made it too much of a pain to keep up with trimming it constantly, especially since I was terrible at cutting it evenly. I usually chopped it to my shoulders every two or three months, and didn’t let it grow past my lower back.
“Don’t,” Teris growled at me, plucking my hands off the tangled mass.
My words died in my throat as I watched him swiftly free it from the bush, much faster and less painfully than I had been doing it. “Don’t what?” I finally asked, as he freed the last few strands and swept a hand down the length of it, making sure he hadn’t missed any.
“Cut it.” He released my hair and stepped away from me. “I’ll stay high in the trees. Blow fire if you need me to slow down. And if you see a damn klynna, you land on the branches with me.”
“Dakota made peace with the klynnas,” I pointed out, still reeling a little from his words, and clueless as to why he wouldn’t want me to cut my hair.
He ignored me, shifting forms and streaking into the forest.
More curses spilled from me as I shifted too, launching myself into the sky and fighting like hell to catch up to the sabertooth. He stayed far enough ahead of me that I had to squint to make his fur out through the branches and leaves, but I worked hard and managed to keep up with him.
And honestly, I was pretty damn proud of that.
We passed a klynna at one point, and I heard him snarling at me when I nodded at it without diving away from it. The thing was so massive that I didn’t stand a chance at outrunning it, anyway, and flying away like it was going to kill me wasn’t going to do a damn thing to help Dakota’s peace agreement.
Half the dayhad passed when we reached the mountains I was supposed to be searching. They were made of smooth black stone, rather than the white I’d thought I was looking for. There was a thick column of glittering white rock sweeping through many of the mountains, though, and when I saw that, Vevol’s instructions made a lot more sense.
You would think a goddess would be better at giving directions. But since she’d never actually had to travel like a normal fae, I supposed it made sense that she was shitty with geography.
Teris disappeared into the trees near one sweeping part of the white rock column, so I figured that was where we were going, and spiraled down to the forest.
I shifted before landing, but the moment my feet met the ground, a massive body crashed into mine. My back hit a smooth tree roughly, but not hard enough to cause pain.
Teris snarled at me, “We had a fucking deal, Nai.”
“Did we?” I drawled back, playing the same damn card he had the first time we talked, even though my heart was beating irrationally fast with his use of my old nickname.
“You saw the klynna. It could’vekilledyou.”
“Think how much easier your life would be if I was gone,” I shot back.
“Don’t even fucking suggest that.” He grabbed my face in both of his hands, his grip tight but not painful as he tilted my head back so he could glare at me more effectively.
“You didn’t care when Aev dragged me off to his land and locked me away for two decades, so why the hell would it matter to you if I faced off with a klynna and lost?” I shot back, wrapping my fingers around his hands and gripping them hard.
His eyes went dark—nearly black. “He was your mate. You wanted him. You chose him,Queen Naomi.”
