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“Eat.”
The growled word wasn’t a suggestion. I ignored it anyway, focusing on the horizon. The ship rolled, and I took a deep breath, clamping down on the urge to vomit. I just had to hold it together until we docked, and then I would find a way for Telean and me to escape.
I could practically feel Lorian bristling behind me. That strange connection still remained between us. It was an unusual kind of awareness that made it impossible to hide from his presence on this ship.
I fisted my hands. I’d find a way to sever that connection at the first opportunity.
“Fine,” he bit out. “Starve.”
He stalked away, and I ignored him, even as my throat tightened. He was back in his human form.As he’d been ever since we’d left the city gates. It was worse, seeing him this way—the way I’d known him before that night. It made me question my own mind, even though I knew exactly what I’d seen.
To my right, the sails swished, and the mast made a strange creaking sound. I could feel the blood draining from my face. My chest tightened, and ice-cold sweat slid down my spine.
Forcing myself to regain control, I focused on my breathing. Deep, steady breaths until it no longer felt as if I was suffocating.
I risked a glance behind me at the crew. No one else looked worried.
The sounds were likely perfectly normal.
I refused to humiliate myself by asking someone. Besides, most of the crew Lorian had arranged seemed terrified of me.
Clearly, they’d heard what had happened two nights ago when we’d led the hybrids to safety. When we’d emptied the king’s dungeon, robbed his courtiers blind, and I’d left his assessor bleeding out on the ballroom floor.
He’d had it coming.
I should probably feel some kind of shame for the unhinged way I’d behaved. Something inside me had been unleashed, and I’d reveled in the blood and pain of my enemies.
Instead, all I felt was a dull sense of pride and a longing to make my remaining enemies pay.
One of the crew members was shout-whispering loud enough for me to hear Lorian’s name. They were in awe of the fae prince. Meanwhile, I could barely look at him.
In exchange for Lorian’s help that night, I’d stolen the amulet he’d needed so badly. I hadn’t understood exactly why he needed that amulet—only that he longed for it with a desperation I’d never seen from him before.
Our bargain had relied on my delivering that amulet to him. It was the only way the hybrids would stay alive. So, I’d ridden furiously across the city with Madinia, my power drained, my body almost useless. And when I’d thrown that amulet to Lorian, I’d expected that moment to be my last. Expected the hundreds of arrows aimed at me to pierce my flesh.
Instead, Lorian had shed his human glamour and slaughtered half the king’s men.
Fae. He was fae.
And not just any fae.
They called him the Bloodthirsty Prince.
He’d once laid waste to a city called Crawyth, close to the border of the fae lands. It was one of the few refuges for the hybrids. I’d been just a few winters old when I’d lived there with Demos and our parents.
The night I was stolen from that family, the Bloodthirsty Prince had turned the city to rubble.
According to Demos, there was little chance my mother had survived. She’d been too distraught at my kidnapping to use her power to protect herself when she’d gone back into our home.
Demos hadn’t seen my father again after that night. He’d grown up as a rebel and spent two years in the king’s dungeon, his friends slaughtered.
Fresh nausea swept through my stomach, and I tightened my hands on the rail in front of me. Lorian’s words played through my mind.
“Iknowyou can handle it. Because I trained you to handle it. That doesn’t mean I won’t wait with my gut in knots until I see you’re still breathing.”
I’d thought he…cared. I’d thought we had something. That night, when I’d galloped through the city streets, I hadn’t just been fleeing to my friends, my family.
I’d been aiming forhim.
