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“It’s a perilous journey.”
“And my other option is what? You really think I’m going to stay here? With you?” I demanded, my voice beginning to shake.
“You really have no other choice.” His voice had turned icy. “There are things I must do here. And when they’re done, I’ll take you back home.”
I stared. “And how long will these things take to complete? Hours? Days?”
“A few months perhaps.” He had the grace to look chagrined.
“Months! I don’t have months! Kaye needs me now. You heard what Lancelet told us about the state of Pendrath. Things are in chaos.”
He gave me a hard look. “And you think things are bound to improve when you return to your brother the king without the sword?”
“The sword...” I had almost forgotten the fucking sword. Excalibur. “Fuck.”
A woman’s face flashed before my eyes. A fae woman of surpassing beauty with magnificent violet eyes and a wild tangle of silver and amethyst hair.
“She took it,” I said hoarsely.
Orcades had stood over me. Held the sword in her hands. She had seemed to pity me for a moment. Then she had said...
“She knew you. She knew you were Siabra,” I blurted out. “She said she would spill your blood with Excalibur.”
Then she had left me there to die. Very pretty, but not the nicest full-blooded fae I had ever hoped to meet.
“Who did? Who knew?” Draven asked.
“No! No questions from you until you answer more of mine,” I said.
Draven’s eyes narrowed. “I’ve been answering them all. I’m being nothing but forthright with you.”
I snorted. “Sure you are. Says the man who kidnapped me and brought me across an entire fucking ocean without even asking me first.”
“You were in no state to be asked. What part of ‘almost dead’ are you having trouble understanding?” He sounded as if he were losing his temper again. We both were. Good. I didn’t care how angry he was getting. This was turning out to be the worst day of my life. And considering one particular night in a dark and rainy stable, that was saying something.
“Perhaps you should have found me a healer on Eskira then, instead of bringing me to... whatever the hell this place is.” I waved a hand at the gorgeous surroundings.
“You’re in a palace. In the Court of Umbral Flames. Where the best healers in all of Aercanum reside. But you wanted me to what? Find you a healer right there in those deserted ruins where we might have been attacked at any instant? Or take you all the way back to Cerunnos? You would have died by then.”
I clenched my jaw. “What’s with the horns? You lied to me.”
“I did no such thing. I said I wasn’t worried aboutyousprouting any.”
“Semantics. You’re no better than Vesper was. You were a liar the entire time.”
“Don’t forget a killer, too. And what? You expected me to be a man of honor? Like your precious Sir Ector?”
The mention of Sir Ector stopped me cold. He had treated Lancelet and I like daughters. He would be heartbroken to hear what had happened. So would Galahad.
“Don’t you dare say his name. He’s better than you in every way. But yes, it’s true. Laugh all you want, but I had almost started to have hope.”
Draven raised one brow. “Hope?”
“Hope that you were better than I had thought you were. Hope that you might have a shred of honor. Hope that you cared about... About people other than yourself.” I stopped myself just in time. I had nearly said “about me.”
The look Draven gave me was almost reproachful. “I did everything I could. I did what I thought was right.”
“Yet you hid who you were from me the entire time. How? Tell me that much at least. How did you do it?”
