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“Apparently so,” she said sharply. “The human is pathetic. It took much magic and was quite taxing on her frail body.”
Garrick cursed. “That’s no excuse. You’ve healed humans before—”
“Maybe she’s weaker than the rest,” Isolde interrupted. “Besides, what do you care? She’s nothing more than a worm thatpossiblyhas valuable blood. The idea that a Silverfrost ever considered bedding a human and creating that thing is...” She winced. “Disgusting.”
This time, the growl that rumbled out of Garrick’s throat was all animal. The hairs rose on the back of my neck as I imagined him transforming into a wolf right there and leaping at Isolde. “Was your failure to heal her completelydeliberate?”
Isolde spun away, her long blonde hair whipping around her shoulders. “You insult me.”
“And you’re avoiding my question.”
Turning back to him, she stalked closer, her words venomous. “Everything I’ve done, I’ve done ontheirorders, Garrick. Just like you. Except I find it to be an honor to obey them, and I don’t try to fight it. Remember your place, dog. That girl doesn’t deserve our allegiance. Even if she’s a Silverfrost, she isn’t fae. She’s mortal. Nothing like us. She can’t rule. All she can do is faithfully obey our sovereigns, same as us, and be the shield we need.”
Turning on her heel, the fae stormed from the room, slamming the door behind her. At my side, the healer shook her head, eyes full of anger as she glanced at Garrick. “Human or not, if Florentia Cantwell is a Silverfrost, tampering with her healing and her ability to pass a test is treasonous.”
Garrick strode across the room, towering over the small woman sitting in her chair. His gold eyes were fiery, but I couldn’t decide if his rage was all directed toward the healer, or also toward Isolde. “You will say nothing,” he said. “If you speak a word about this to anyone, I will hear of the rumors, and I will hunt you down and tear out your throat.”
From my prone position, I stared at him breathlessly, frozen in fear even though his threat had nothing to do with me. This was confirmation enough. Preston and Nerissa were sabotaging my trials, and Garrick was choosing their side once more. He was their faithful hunter and killer, through and through. From slipping me into unconsciousness so I couldn’t escape to covering up the king and queen’s deceitful ways, he was betraying me again and again. No matter what vows he’d made or what control they held over him, no matter how much of his actions went against his own will...it didn’t matter. I could never trust him.
As much as I longed to be able to believe the man underneath their control was my friend, he was theirs.
Not my ally, not my friend.
Never mine.
After Garrick had threatened the healer and made her vow to never tell a soul what she’d overheard, she’d brought me an outfit sent from the king and queen themselves and then promptly disappeared. I didn’t even know her name. Though her kindness toward me had been self-serving, I still wished I knew it, still wished I’d had a chance to thank her properly for preparing me for this fight. Even if I knew, healed or not, I still couldn’t win. Not as long as my magic remained unreachable to me.
Now, outfitted in leather boots, a pair of leggings—as she’d called the fitted trousers—a type of half-corset that rested comfortably over my chest without restraining my thankfully less sore ribs, and a loose tunic that allowed for free movement, I trailed Garrick out of my room and into the hall. I shoved my arms into my coat as I walked.
But then Garrick paused, turning to offer me a sheathed hunting knife, and I frowned. Like his others, the hilt was marked with the silhouette of a wolf before the full moon.
“I thought this fight was a test of my magical power,” I murmured, glancing down the hall to find no one else about.
“Just take it, Starlight,” he said, his expression unreadable. “Find a place to hide it. And finish buttoning your coat. We must hurry.”
“Turn around,” I ordered, and Garrick didn’t waste time questioning me. As soon as his back was to me, I hastily shoved the knife down the front of my tunic, letting the small corset hold and conceal it, and then buttoned my coat over it all.
I knew there was no hope in running, so as soon as I’d finished, I fell into step beside Garrick, going downstairs to exit the inn and meet the rest of our group outside the nearby stables. Everyone was already mounted.
“Don’t keep us waiting. The citizens are in such suspense,” King Preston said, a hint of mockery in his bored tone.
A cold sliver of light from the waxing moon pierced through the hazy clouds, reminding me that a full moon was gradually approaching. A moon I would likely never see. Would Preston and Nerissa keep my blood and use it that night anyway? My stomach hollowed at the thought.
My breaths streamed out in a frosty mist as I burrowed deeper into my fur coat and hurried over the cobblestones toward Garrick’s and my waiting horse. Garrick set his hands on my waist to help me onto the gelding first. I held still as Garrick swung up behind me and wrapped his arms around my torso as easily as if he held me all the time.
“Showtime,” Queen Nerissa murmured, and she and her brother took the lead, guiding our group in a trot through the city streets and toward one of the towering mountains hemming it in.
“You drugged me?” I asked Garrick under my breath as our horse lurched forward. When Queen Nerissa’s head turned, the starlight catching on her pointed ear, I froze. Of course her keener hearing had caught my words.
But Garrick didn’t seem concerned. “It was no drug. There is one other ability granted to us wolf shifters.”
Of course there was something else you didn’t tell me.I kept the thought to myself, bitter as it was. If Garrick couldn’t even speak about whatever magic kept him under the siblings’ control, then it stood to reason there’d been plenty of information he’d either been forced to withhold or hadn’t been eager to share with the woman he’d been ordered to hunt.
“We have the ability to subdue others—to calm them or put them to sleep,” Garrick continued. “I suppose because we are meant to be predators, it is another way our magic manifests and allows us to secure our targets.”
Glancing down at where Garrick’s hands rested at my waist, I reminded myself to be wary of his nearness in the future.IfI found a way to survive past tonight.
And yet, he’d given me his knife. He’d admitted he was a prisoner as much as I was. I was starting to believe the man I’d met was the true Garrick. The trouble was knowing when it was him, and when he was under Preston or Nerissa’s control...and always being wary. His mercurial moods lately indicated their control was sporadic, but frequent. Unpredictable. And even when he wasn’t fully under their control—whatever strange sort of glamour or spell it was they used on him—he seemed to be bound by specific orders or promises all the time, like the one that compelled him to hunt me down, to guard me from escaping.
