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He snorted, “No, I was thinking Alaric, or maybe Tiernan. Finn and I are good, but we have relied too heavily on our Graces and our ability to fly.” He looked a little embarrassed at the admission, “Alaric has been training with the sword since he was a boy, and I’ve never seen anyone fight like Tiernan—the male moves like water with a sharp edge.”
“And your Graceswillbend to your will, Liana,” Alaric said, changing the subject back to the task at hand.
I could tell the very idea of me in close combat with anyone unsettled him to no end. “Finn has been doing more research and after we’ve all completed the Immortal Bond with you, you should be able to see andfeelthe control we have over our Graces. Mimic it, so to speak. It will be easier.”
I picked up a handful of cool sand from my side and watched it slip through my fingers, carried away by the wind. “Why do we have to wait? We should do it now—bond, I mean.”
“The bond is strongest when performed under the light of a full moon,” Kade reminded me for the hundredth time. I had to question whether he still wanted to bond with me at all by the way he’d said it, “You’re bonding with not one, butfourmales—”
“It’s never been done before—at least, not to our knowledge. We’ll take every advantage we can get to make sure it works,” Alaric added.
The half-moon taunted me from its perch high above. It would be days—noweeksbefore it was full. A fortnight—give or take.
Fourteen days
I could wait fourteen more days, right?
Kade stretched out his arms. Rolled his shoulders back and loosened the muscles in his neck. The sun had almost sunk below the line of the horizon, and its burnt orange glow turned his skin a shining bronze. His golden eyes looked brighter against it, and his short brown hair darker.
Alaric stared off with his steel-blue eyes into the churning waves. His strong jaw set, and his brows pulled together in concentrated thought. How I longed to wipe the worry from his features. To see the ecstasy in them like I had that night in my bathing chamber, and later, in my bed.
Fourteen days.I gulped, trying to quell the ache spreading low in my belly and the heat pooling between my thighs.
Just when I was about to say to hell with it and ask them to take me home and ravish me until dawn, the sound of Finn’s approach broke the spell—forcing a helping of sense and propriety down my throat.
He swooped down onto the tiny shoreline next to us, cocking his head, “I thought you were training, not napping,” he chastised with a smirk.
“Ugh,” I groaned, “Just get us home, will you?”
His eyes widened, and he chuckled, “So, you had a productive day, then?”
I rose from the sand, beyond ready to return to the palace, and have myself a very large amount of wine.
Alaric brushed the light sand off his trousers, his black hair falling over his already darkened eyes, “Has Silas sent word yet?” he asked Finn, “Have his scouts uncovered anything?”
The captain of the Horde armies had sent three teams of scouts, two over land and one made up of six Draconians, who searched from the sky. It had only been two days, but combined with the two scout parties Alaric sent out, they should’ve foundsomethingby now.
Finn shook his head, “I just came from the Horde camp. And no, there’ve found nothing.”
“It doesn’t make any sense,” I said, “Why would Valin lie about an attack? They already had me—had planned to kill me—why lie about something like that?”
Alaric pursed his lips, and cleared his throat, “I don’t think Valin lied. I believe the Mad King would attempt to reclaim his throne. And even with his abilities, he would have to take it by force—he’d have to have a very large army to even dream of taking on the Horde.”
I shivered.
“That’s the most confusing part,” Finn said, pulling me into his arms and rubbing soothing circles into my back.
I tilted my head up to look at him, “What is?”
“Like Alaric said, Ricon would have to have a sizeable force to have a chance at succeeding, but what I don’t understand iswherehe would get a force that large. There are some Fae who live in the Wastes. There are small villages, but that’s all.”
Alaric said, “They number only in the hundreds. Not thousands.”
“Exactly,” Finn nodded, and I understood why he was so confused. Even if the Mad King were able to gather every Fae in all the Wastes, he would only have an army of perhaps a thousand, and they would not be warriors—he’d have an army of simple folk. Farmers. Peasants, and the scourge that lived within caves in the mountains.
“We’ll figure it out,” Kade said, tossing a large rock up and down in hand, his gaze fixed on the spot where the sun had just slipped below the water, “He’ll have to show his ugly face sometime right?” He shrugged and threw the stone far out to sea.
Finns arms tensed around me.
