“Ready, miss?” one of the guards beside the door asked.
I laughed, smiling softly at him. “Quilian, I’ve told you time and again not to call me miss.”
“Force of habit.” He shrugged one shoulder with a disarmingly charming smirk.
“I stitched up the gash to your side during the war. I think we’re past formalities,” I argued.
When someone was my patient, it bridged the gap across strangers. I didn’t know Erista’s elder brother well, but he’d been beloved in the war camp, making fast friends with warriors of every clan in the alliance army. With how he stood easily beside the door, arm resting on his scythe, guard leathers filled out with bulging muscles, a lazy grin on his face, and dark skin crinkling beside his eyes, it was clear why.
Quil’s laugh boomed down the hall, and the grumbling behind the door paused. “Santorina, I will always thank you for that. And it didn’t hurt that I got to have your hands on me.”
A low growl echoed from inside, making my spine tingle, but I ignored it and rolled my eyes. “Shameless flirt, Quilian.”
“Always. So, are you ready?”
“No,” I admitted, shaking out the prickling that had returned to my hands. “But I suppose it’s time.
Quil removed an ornate iron key from his belt and inserted it into the matching lock installed on the door when we arrived here from the mountains. He and the other guard on duty grabbed spears carved from the cypher trees as I opened the door and stepped across the threshold, coming face-to-face with Lancaster. Pointed ears peeked out from his wavy brown hair, canines sharp and predatory.
“Hello, Queen of Bounties.” His voice was a low rumble across my skin, and I shivered to remember when he’d first said those words to me. After the Bounty power within my blood had fully woken, when the Angels were free and the final lock withinme snapped. When my senses awoke, and all I could smell was the blood-tinged roses that washed off Lancaster’s frame, along with something powerful and…
I hadn’t addressed that second scent with anyone yet.
“Hello, Hunter,” I snapped. Peering around him, I gave his sister a soft smile where she perched in a rocking chair in the corner. “Good morning, Mora.”
“Santorina!” she cheered, bounding over to greet me. “How are you today? Are you ready for the journey?”
Where Lancaster was a walking armor of aggression and lethal growls, his sister had embodied sunshine lately. She was just as deadly—just as tricky with her glamour abilities, though they weren’t as strong ever since she’d been injured in the emblem hunt—but she’d been friendly. Perhaps exorbitantly so due to how it annoyed her brother.
Her question grated on me, too, though.
“I’m sure it will be a pleasant trek,” I said through a tight jaw. I turned to Lancaster and deadpanned, “Have you prepared?”
“I will never be prepared for this,” he grumbled, but he brushed past me with a large pack strapped to his back and approached the guards. “Let’s go.”
Gods, I’d like to stabhimwith a thousand needles all at once.
I turned to follow, but Mora grabbed my wrist. I flinched, my elbow instantly snapping up toward her chin, but she caught it.
“Sorry,” I muttered, aggression tightening my chest. My entire body coiled with an energy that wanted to maim, slaughter. I swallowed it, taking a step away from the fae. “I can’t control it yet.”
“The Bounty instincts are new and likely still waking. I assure you I’m prepared for it.” It had happened every time I was near them. One small growl or step too close had my urge to attack snapping beyond my control. It was unpredictable and infuriating, no matter how much I didn’t like the fae. “Be patientwith him,” Mora pleaded, gaze trailing her brother out of the room. “He is still learning how these new stories of the gods change what we’ve always believed.”
“As am I,” I answered.
I turned to leave, not needing to defend myself to the fae.
Silently, but for Quil trying to pierce Lancaster’s stoic facade with quips, we followed the guards onto the sprawling dunes of Meridat’s estate, the river winding through the property a lazy babble in the background.
Almost everyone was already gathered, gray clouds rolling toward Xenovia from the east. Cypherion and Vale stood in the shadows, harshly whispering. From this angle, his frame almost entirely eclipsed hers, but with a sigh, Cypherion tucked Vale beneath his chin, wrapping his arms around her, and muttered against her hair.
Mila and Tolek sat in the sand, both a bit stoic, but Meridat’s Soulguider advisors spurred them into comfortable conversation. As we came to a stop, everyone turned, assessing the fae.
“We’re ready,” I said, slicing through the tension.
“You have your routes planned?” Cypherion double checked as they approached the group.
“Yes.” I nodded. “And you will be okay here?” I exchanged a fervent look with Cyph, remembering Ophelia’s request. We kept Tolek out of Damenal by whatever means necessary.
