Total pages in book: 129
Estimated words: 123190 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 616(@200wpm)___ 493(@250wpm)___ 411(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 123190 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 616(@200wpm)___ 493(@250wpm)___ 411(@300wpm)
I fold my arms, staring them down, one by one. I should let them think I have magic. Let them fear me.
Kendrick cocks his head. “You never told me you had faerie blood.” There’s no anger in his voice, just . . . disappointment?
“You never told me you were a kidnapper,” I snap back.
He smiles. “So, we’re even?”
I’m almost knocked over by the sight of those dimples peeking out through the scruff on his cheeks, and I have to swallow hard. There were so few times in Mordeus’s dungeons that warranted a smile, but Kendrick found ways and reasons to smile at me just to help me through.
“Give me my cloak and my boots.” I glance around the cottage again but see no sign of either. “I need to go home.”
He shakes his head. “I’m afraid we can’t do that.”
I release a sound that’s way too close to a squeak. “You can’t just . . . just take someone.”
“And yet we did,” Remme says.
I could run, but they’ve already demonstrated that they’re faster and stronger than me, and how far would I get without shoes? And how long could I handle the darkness of the night without the magic of my ring to protect me?
“You’re lucky we grabbed you when we did,” Kendrick says. “Those insurgents would’ve taken you and used you to manipulate your sister, the queen. Is that what you want?”
“And how will you use me?”
Kendrick scrapes a hand over his jaw. “We need your help.”
It’s like they aren’t even listening to me. “I respectfully decline.”
“Not until we talk,” Kendrick says. He looks at his friends. “Leave us, please.”
Remme folds his arms. “Hale, you can’t—”
Kendrick snaps his fingers, and the door to my left flies open.
I gape. He has magic.
Kendrick points to the open door. “Get out.”
The quiet one winces. “I don’t love that idea, Hale.”
“Out,” Kendrick repeats. He shifts his gaze between his friends. “Both of you. I need to talk to the princess.” He says the word like it has a bitter taste and he needs it off his tongue as fast as possible.
The quiet one frowns. “I’m advising you not to be alone with her. You don’t know what she’s capable of.”
“Do you see the door?” Kendrick asks, nodding to the door he’s still pointing to.
The men listen, taking a second to glance over their shoulders a final time before pulling the door shut behind them, and then I’m left alone.
With Kendrick.
“They call you Hale.”
He nods sharply, still watching the door as if he expects them to barge back in. “That’s my name.”
“I thought it was Kendrick.”
Slowly, he slides those eyes back to me, and a warm shiver shimmies down my spine. “Kendrick is my family name.”
I never asked. They called him Kendrick in the dungeons, and I assumed that was his given name. I guess it serves to prove I never knew him that well after all.
I look at the door—the one he opened with a snap of his fingers. “You have magic.”
There’s a challenge in the way he raises his brows. “Trained since birth.”
“I don’t know what you want from me, but I’m sure I can’t help you.” I don’t say, I thought you were my friend, but his expression softens like he sees the accusation in my eyes.
“Just hear me out,” he says.
I hold his gaze for a long time. I know those eyes. I was saved by those eyes—their tenderness, their compassion. When a guard broke my fingers one by one only to heal them and do it all over again, Kendrick lured him into his cell and broke his neck. When my fear and misery threatened to drown me, Kendrick reminded me I wasn’t alone.
“And if I hear you out and I still want to leave,” I ask, “will you let me go back to the palace tonight?”
Closing his eyes for a beat, he draws in a slow breath. “I hope once you hear me out, you’ll understand why I can’t do that.”
My chest feels too tight. “You’ve changed.”
Kendrick’s eyes darken, and he looks me over from my lips all the way down to my stocking feet. When his eyes make their way back up, they linger on all the curves in between. “So have you.”
My cheeks flame with heat. It was never like that between us—never about romance or sex. I was too young and too preoccupied with trying to survive, and Kendrick was, well, he wasn’t the kind of guy who’d see a malnourished fourteen-year-old in that light.
Luckily, he turns away from me and I’m spared from him seeing my embarrassment. He goes to a small table by the fireplace and fills a pewter mug before offering it to me.
My mouth is so dry I want to yank the mug from his hand and gulp it down, but I only stare at him, even though its contents smell so good. It’s the delicious cinnamon and spice scent that I woke up to. “Poisoning me so soon?”