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“You don’t have to thank me, baby.” I turned back to the letter, ignoring Wey’s huff at the endearment. He secretly liked it, I knew it. I finished reading the letter out loud.
“Theon misses you,too. I can see it in his eyes and the way he doesn’t smile as easily. But I promise to keep him safe and as happy as possible. He’ll be okay. So will Florin and I. But the three of us really need you two to be okay as well.
So help the Resistance, but don’t do anything too dangerous. Please. I don’t think any of us could bear it if we lost you.
Stay safe. Keep fighting.
Hopefully our family will be reunited soon.
Your friend,
Braz”
I took a shaky breath,carefully folded both letters, and placed them inside the envelope. After I set it on the small table in our tent, I turned to Wey, buried my face in his chest, hugged him tightly, and said, “Don’t let go.”
“I won’t, baby. But… you can’t let go, either.”
“Try and stop me from hugging you all night.”
He huffed a small laugh. “I love you, Nica.”
Nuzzling into his chest, I whispered, “I love you, too, Wey.”
21
Theon
Istilled, moving my gaze slowly around the clearing. Taking slow, deep breaths like Romulus taught me, I focused more than my sight. I focused my magic. I’d never been so keenly aware of its presence inside me as after the fae had used that net to neutralize it. Once I’d had it back, filling up the cavern its absence had left in my stomach, learning the shape and limits of it had been all I wanted to do.
Which led us to this clearing. Day in and day out for months, I’d stood here. With Romulus. With Jedrek. With Florin. He was learning to use his own magic, and we were learning both how to work our two very different types of magic together, and how to defend against each other.
A shimmer in the air was all the warning I had before a glistening arc of raw fae power lashed through the space in front of me. Running on pure instinct, I threw up my hand, snapping a shield of my own power into place between my and Florin’s magic even as I shot my body to the side, curling into a forward roll like Braz had taught me. My half-orc definitely hadn’t been absent or silent during all these long months of training. My proficiency with my bare hands, sword, spear, and bow had developed along with my magic under Braz’s tutelage.
Behind me, Florin’s magic collided with mine, sending hissing sparks into the air. They mixed like water droplets falling into hot oil.
I still couldn’t see him, his fae magic giving him the gift of invisibility. No wonder everyone thought the fae were a myth.
It’d been marvelous to watch him grow, both in strength and confidence. Florin at House Natas had been an enigma—untouchable and mysterious. Here, he’d lowered some of those walls, and what had emerged was a gentle soul living inside a fierce warrior. I’d already known that, though. I’d seen it the night he’d killed Dimas to save me, but watching all his fae relatives figure it out had been a treat.
I felt him a moment before he was on me. I was still kneeling in the dirt, making my height advantage basically useless.
“Are you paying attention, my sweet Theon?” Florin’s breath whispered across my ear as his chest pressed against my back, and a hand snaked around my shoulder to settle around my throat.
I licked my lips. “I may have been a bit distracted.”
I could feel him smirk.
“Are you distracted now?”
I shook my head. “Definitely not.”
From the side of the clearing, Braz said, “Point to Florin. Now, come eat lunch.”
The hand on my throat tightened for just a moment before letting me go with a caress, and Florin materialized out of the empty air behind me. “Our half-orc has grown quite bossy, hasn’t he?”
I smiled as I climbed to my feet. Florin’s magic wasn’t the only thing he’d grown into. The dark horns that had sprouted when his magic was uncaged were longer now, thick and deadly looking, and curving back over the top of his head. They contrasted wildly with the white-blond of his hair, but somehow, I couldn’t quite picture how he’d looked without them. They suited him. As did the glowing, runic-looking tattoos covering his arms and torso.
Frankly, he’d blossomed. New, hardened muscle covered every inch of him, and his face no longer held the bravado he’d worn like armor. He didn’t need it anymore, and the change was… stunning. I’d never tire of the confidence, the openness, shining out of his pretty purple eyes.
