“Because that thing should not be alive!”
“What?” I gasped, a hole widening in my heart.
“It needed to die,” he emphasized with a wave at all of us, at the wounds still bleeding.
Zanox came galloping through the trees, Jezebel atop his back. “You killed it?”
“Enough!” Lancaster shouted, wiping blood from his eyes. The gashes across his cheek were deep. “We will discuss it back inside.”
Then, he stormed through the trees, a silent assertion that if we wanted answers—and a healer—we had no choice but to follow. My ire ignited at the fae commanding us.
Jezebel and I solemnly returned Sapphire and the khrysaor to their hiding spot.
“Sometimes our people are locked to our tempestuous habits, though we’d rather not be,” Mora muttered in an explanation I didn’t understand as we traipsed back down the jungle path. “Come along. Tolek didn’t hear you guys, and we didn’t tell him where we were going when we left. He’s probably worried we escaped to attack a nearby human settlement.”
She rolled her eyes, but her attention drifted back to the clearing once again hidden by oversized fronds and sweeping vines. And a crease formed between her brows, dimming her immortal beauty in a moment of uncertainty.
Chapter Eighteen
Tolek
“What in Xenique’sname happened to you?” Erista blurted as the door to the back room of the inn flew open, a sharp wind shuffling the scrolls and papers spread across the wide, polished square table.
Ophelia stormed in, and?—
“Are youbleeding?” I blurted out.
“It’s healing,” she exhaled, falling into a chair at the head of the table. I crouched before her, forgetting the Endasi I’d been working to translate, focused instead on where crimson smeared across her skin.
Lancaster stomped in after her, striding past glass shelves crammed with books to the other side of the room and grabbing an apple from the basket on the sideboard. His feet scuffed over the wooden floors. Blood coated one side of his face, nasty gashes slicing his cheek. Mora and Jezebel followed, the former shooting a concerned look at her brother.
“And where in the Spirit Realm didyoutwo go?” I threw at the fae.
“To save your Revered.” With a growl—and no distinguishable response beyond that—Lancaster pulled out thechair at the opposite end of the table so he sat directly across from Ophelia and began slicing the fruit roughly.
“Saveus?” Ophelia snapped at him, wincing as she leaned around me.
“Dammit,” I muttered. “Erista, can you go find Rina?”
The Soulguider cast a worried look at Jezebel. Baby Alabath held her arm delicately, the skin nastily bruised and her face pale, but she nodded at her partner, and Erista swept from the room.
As Ophelia and Lancaster continued to bicker, I gently shifted aside the strap of her leathers and swung her hair over her clean shoulder. The gouge was deep. What in the fucking realm did that?
“Why did you kill it?” Ophelia yelled again at Lancaster.
I gaped at her. “What did he kill?”
“That thing isn’tsupposedto be alive!” Lancaster shot back, ignoring my question. “Don’t you understand?”
“No, I don’t understand anyfuckingthing that’s going on here!” Ophelia’s voice cracked, shattering the control I tried to hold onto.
“Quiet!” I roared. Ophelia gave me an impressed look, brows raised. “Now someone tell me what thefuckhappened out there?”
Erista returned with Santorina, Cypherion and Lyria in tow. Rina handed me a stack of towels and a bowl of water, then scurried around the table with Erista to care for Jezebel. My sister dropped into a chair, sipping her drink and watching everyone curiously as if waiting for the fighting to resume, but CK stood behind Ophelia’s chair with his arms crossed.
“It was a bird,” Ophelia began, and as I delicately wiped away the blood staining her skin, she told us what happened.
When she was done, I reiterated, “A bird did this?”A bird?The claw mark ripped across her shoulder—Rina might need to stitch it. How hada birddone this?
