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“You were right,” he said quietly.
“About what?”
His lips twitched at the corners. “About many things. I shouldn’t have treated you as I did, taking you from here and trying to…” He shook his head. “I don’t understand you, Andie, but I want to. I want that more than I want anything else in this world. I want to understand you so I will never again give you a reason to want to leave me.”
I considered him for a long moment. “I want to understand you too. I’m sorry for not trying harder to see things from your point of view.”
He slowly closed the distance between us. “Does that mean you will stay with me and continue to allow me to try?”
“Yes.”
His hand captured the back of my head.
“Tell me you want me to kiss you as badly as I want it.”
I rested my hands against his chest and tipped my chin up in invitation.
“I want it more,” I said.
He kissed me tenderly, pouring his regret and love into it, and I trembled against him, feeling vulnerable and afraid.
“I’m sorry I hurt you,” he said when he pulled away and wrapped me in his arms.
“I’m sorry too,” I said, hugging him back.
My stomach growled then. He grunted and led me to the kitchen where Mya was eating some crackers.
“Everything good?” she asked.
“Andie is hungry.” He started going through their cupboards like it was no big deal. And apparently, to Mya and Drav, it wasn’t.
She gestured to the table as he opened a can of something.
“Were you serious about going back to the caves to destroy the crystal?” Mya asked. “Do you really think the crystal is what’s keeping the hounds alive up here?”
“I do. The fey came to this land, looking for magic, right? A magic they found in the crystal. One you witnessed when you touched the crystal and it showed you their past. And what did it show you? How their own people abandoned them and how it brought the animals who lived within the caves back to life.”
“If the crystal’s keeping the hounds alive, then—” Her gaze shifted to Drav.
“Before the curse, everything in those caves just resurrected, right? After the curse, in order to resurrect, the fey had to be wearing the crystal shards they received, right?”
Mya nodded.
“The hounds didn’t get a crystal but were obviously part of the curse because they mutated more with each death when the other animals didn’t.”
“Not their deaths,” Drav said. “They mutated when we consumed them.”
“Yeah, that was definitely part of the curse,” Mya said. “Their people thought the idea of endless resources was unnatural.”
“So they made it unnatural in truth,” I said. “Those hounds didn’t just come back mutated and angry at the fey. They came back with their own crystals that retain their magic when they’re on the surface.” I looked at Molev and Drav. “You’ve had their hearts in your hands. You’ve felt their energy. That negative darkness that pulses from them. Isn’t it like the crystal in the caves? I think they’re still linked to the crystal.”
Mya’s mouth dropped open a little. “Oh my God.”
Molev slid a bowl of heated soup in front of me.
“That’s not all. The doctor found a link between the older, smarter infected and the hounds. Their blood samples both have these vibrations that the fey and the immune women don’t have. She tested Eitri’s crystal. It didn’t vibrate, but I think it might have when it was in the caves.”
Drav looked at Molev, and I took a quick spoonful of soup.
