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“Where is it, exactly?” Lyrena put one hand on each hip and stared across the river as if, just by commanding, the rift might appear to her.
I kept the cringe off of my face. “I am not sure.”
Lyrena burst out laughing. Osheen sighed. Cyara remained silent and watchful, as always. And Maisri splashed into the water happily, entirely unbothered.
Osheen yanked her back, sighing again. Even heavier this time. I wasn’t sure why we’d brought a child along. Arran had mentioned something about a daisy fae—whatever that was—and bringing someone to help with the cooking and cleaning. But the twelve-year-old seemed like more of a liability than a convenience. Though her slightly unhinged joy at teasing the Gremog had been impressive.
“It was dark, and we were more worried about making sure the man didn’t kill us than figuring out where he’d come from,” Arran said. Everyone went silent—as they tended to when he spoke.
He may be the High King of Annwyn, but he’d always be the Brutal Prince first.
“So…” Lyrena dipped her toe in the water and avoided Arran’s eyes.
“Parys said to look for a shimmer. A visual disturbance of some kind. We might not be able to see it from all angles,” Cyara said.
I shot her a look. “You and Parys seem to have been chatting a lot lately, considering how you felt about him when he—” I bit back the last few words.
Too late. Arran’s beast was growling.
Calm down. The only one who gets to fuck me now is you.
The growl turned into something lower—a promise that had me squeezing my thighs together before anyone else in our group scented me.
“Parys and I both realized that while some battles are won with swords and axes, many more are won with knowledge,” Cyara said.
“Spoken like a librarian’s daughter.” Lyrena shoved her shoulder playfully.
Cyara rolled her eyes.
“Let’s spread out, then,” Arran ordered, taking the first steps across the river. “The human pitched his tent there on the opposite side of the bank. So the rift must be nearby. Maisri—”
“I’ve got her,” Osheen grumbled, the child’s hand already tightly in his.
It was odd, to see Arran looking after someone. Even a child. He surrounded himself with competent beings, capable of taking care of themselves without being managed too closely.
Well, except for me.
As soon as I was across the river, he was at my side. Despite having told everyone else to spread out. And instead of looking around, scouting for the rift, he was sliding me sidelong glances that, unfortunately, were not sexual in nature.
“I am fine,” I muttered, scouting along the edge of the river, scanning methodically from left to right for any strange ‘shimmer.’
“I didn’t say otherwise.” His footsteps crunched through the gravel of the riverbed in time with my own.
Too busy scanning, so I had to eviscerate him with words instead of scathing glances. “You are hovering like a skoupuma female guarding her kitten.”
He paused. “Tell me you’ve never gotten close enough to a skoupuma den to see a kitten.”
For a moment, I thought about torturing him. “Fine, I haven’t. But I read about it in one of the books Parys gave me.”
Silence.
A thought materialized, even though the rift did not. “Haveyouseen a skoupuma den?”
Arran answered without hesitation. “Yes. I hunted down the entire colony after that night in the woods when it attacked you.”
“Attackedus,” I reminded him.
“They are dead, either way.”
