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“If I can’t save you, I’ll lose so much more than that.”
Eighteen
My breath catches,and my heart suddenly races for a very different reason as we remain locked in place, Myron by the window and me perched on the edge of the bed. The afternoon sun paints shadows on his face, gilding his outline of feathers.
“Why?” The question slips out in a whisper, and I don’t expect him to answer, don’t expect him to move, even when I wish for nothing more than to understand what I’ve been pulled into. I know with a certainty ingrained in my bones that I won’t survive the next months, but if I have to die, I’d like to knowwhy.
The silence stretches taut as Myron opens his mouth and no sound comes out.
I’ve seen him do that before, have seen Royad struggle the same way.
“What is it? Can’t you speak?” It’s supposed to be a gentle inquiry, but his eyes flash as if I challenged him.
Instead of flinching away, I get to my feet, making my way across the room one deliberate step after the other under the Crow King’s scrutiny. “Why, Myron?”
Something thaws in his gaze as I use his name for the first time, shoulders slumping ever so slightly as he sighs. His feathers rustle as he takes a step toward me so there is only one foot of space between us, and I can see all the details of his human features: the ridiculously long lashes, the glass-cut cheekbones, the shadow of stubble along his jaw, the soft curve of his mouth as it draws into a sad smile.
“Did you know my people have been living in this palace for thousands of years?” He doesn’t wait for me to respond. “My father had great plans on how to expand his kingdom and took great risks. He conquered land after land, used the peoples he threw under his power, so much so, one day, someone had to put an end to it.”
“The Crow War?” I’m barely aware I’m speaking, too captivated by his deep, calm voice. A voice I could fall asleep listening to if he read me a story.
Myron shakes his head. “Long before the Crow Wars—the first and the second one.” He glances at the table by the couch where I’d left his book next to the breakfast tray. “It was a time when there were female Crow Fae… Fairies,” he corrects, and I could swear the slightly darker seam where his lips part is crimson. He swipes his tongue over them, and it’s gone.
“Female Crows? Royad told me there were no female Crows.”
Myron steps around me, striding toward the seating arrangement where he sits down on the night blue armchair beside the couch. His chest heaves as if our conversation is a dead weight on his lungs, so I wait, curious if this time I’ll get an actual answer.
“There aren’t,” he eventually says. “Not anymore.”
A shiver runs down my spine at the thought of what horrible event might eradicate all females of a species. Hopefully, not a series of unsuccessful marriages. “Why?”
It’s the only thing I allow myself to say as I meet his gaze yet again, and all I get is darkness as he seems to dive into a past invisible to me. “Somebody deemed the Crows unworthy of living but was too cruel to kill us all right away.”
My chest tightens with horror. “Who would do something like that?”
Myron gives a bitter laugh that curls around my body like tendrils of darkness. “Don’t you want to know what makes us so unworthy?”
I don’t dare ask.
Myron says it anyway. “Crows are known for their bloodlust, for their cruelty, for their inability to—” He breaks off, coughing so hard he might not stop again, and for a moment, I debate asking if it is the words he’s trying to get out that are suffocating him or if he just choked on a feather. Instead, I swallow my curiosity, waiting for his coughing to cease and his words to continue. He’s a powerful immortal who has survived hundreds of years if not thousands, he can survive a coughing fit. But when the seizure doesn’t end, I can’t stop myself from crossing the distance between us and picking up the half-full water glass from the tray, handing it to him. “Here.”
As he finishes drinking, cough ebbing with each gulp, a film of ruby remains on his lips, the color so compelling on his pale features I can’t seem to look away.
“Inability to what?” I pick up the napkin from the tray, unfolding it until I have a clean corner between my fingers, and lift it toward his face.
I’ve never seen Myron freeze like this. Still, like a statue of muscles and feathers, a menace of unearthly beauty who has the blood of ninety-nine brides on his hands—or his lips, I’m still undecided about that.
As I touch the white fabric to the corner of his mouth, his eyes snap to mine, genuinely frightened as if he is scared of what he might do if I get too close.
I have to admit,I’mscared of what he might do. Of whatImight do if I don’t figure out what’s going on soon. But for now, I don’t do anything other than wipe his mouth clean with a brush so light I can barely feel the pressure. A shudder rakes through him, breaking the preternatural stillness, and in his eyes, heat springs to life. Heat and a ravenous hunger that should have served as a warning.
I don’t shy away, though. I don’t do anything at all, napkin lingering on his bottom lip as slender veins of crimson spread from the point where the fabric connects with his skin.
“You’re bleeding.” I don’t ask why. Not this time, when I feel the intensity of his gaze all the way to my core. Like a phantom touch, his presence wraps around me, wind and pine and devastation. His features are flickering between human and bird as if he’s having trouble controlling himself, and I can no longer tell what holds me in place, fear, fascination, or his magic.
Only when my breath hitches from the tension in the air do I lower my hand to my lap, my gaze following the red-streaked napkin.
Myron intercepts it before I can touch my thigh, fingers curling around my bad wrist and talons retreating as he seems to regain control of his shifter body. The irony doesn’t fail me that his grip is light like a feather.
