“Sorry.” I loosen my grip.
Krystian rises, and I realize that he’s giving me a piggyback ride so my poor, abused feet won’t have to touch the ground.
My pulse thrashes sickeningly.
“So…” I begin conversationally, resting my chin on Krystian’s shoulder. “You’re an elf?”
Krystian chuckles, and I decide I like the sound. It’s…calm. Comforting. Warm.
“How can you tell?” he asks sarcastically, wiggling his pointed ears.
“You’re a light elf, correct?” I continue.
I can’t help but wonder what he would do if I licked the shell of his ear. I’m not an idiot. I know that can be seen as…inappropriate, but the desire to do so is nearly overwhelming.
My question, for some reason, makes Krystian stagger. I tighten my grip on him, but he regains his footing before we both become intimately familiar with the forest floor.
“Something like that,” he answers evasively, and I don’t press.
My knowledge of the world only stems from what I gathered during my reaping jobs and through books and movies. Light elves and dark elves have been at war for centuries. Light elves derive their power from the sun, while the latter utilizes the moon. Besides that little snippet of information, I don’t know much about them.
“So, how long have you been working with this group?” I ask, desperate to keep the conversation going.
Who knows how long I have before I poof out of existence once more?
Krystian seems relieved at the subject change, the knots in his shoulders loosening.
“Do you want the literal answer or the figurative one?” He slides his gaze towards me, his eyes twinkling.
“Um…both?”
“Well, we met hundreds of years ago, after we were all born marked as a member of Ares’s team. We trained until we were in our twenties, then we were put into a deep sleep until we were needed. We woke up only two or so years ago.”
“Two years, three months, twenty-seven days,” Rafe deadpans from farther back.
“Wait…” I remember hearing about that. All of the gods and goddesses chose an “elite team” that they trained in an elusive, secret compound. Only one team is ever active at a time, and the second that team is killed off, a new one takes its place. “You’re Ares’s team?”
“The one and only.” He chuckles, though the sound is strained, lacking any genuine warmth or amusement.
“Enough small talk. We need to get a move on if we hope to make it back to the hotel before dark,” Everett snaps with a pointed look in Krystian’s direction.
Once again, the muscles beneath my fingers turn taut, though Krystian doesn’t snap back.
The five of us walk the rest of the way in silence, and the entire time, I brace myself for my body to fizzle and fade away. For my dagger to heat where it rests in its thigh holster—because I refused to leave without it and no one but me can carry it. For the voices in my head to scream at me incessantly. For the tug in my chest to intensify.
It never comes.
And I can’t help but wonder…
Am I free?
Or is this another gilded cage I have no hope of escaping from?
CHAPTER EIGHT
THEA
We walk for hours.
