And it was the purely male promise that made her bare her teeth. “Unless you would like to learn precisely what parts of me are made of iron the next time you touch me, I decide those things.”
Dorian gave another purely male smile, brows flicking up, and sauntered out the door as silently as he’d arrived. He only seemed to pause on the threshold—as if some word had snagged his interest. But he continued out, the door closing with barely a click. Unruffled, utterly calm.
Manon gaped after him, cursing her blood for heating again, for … what she’d allowed him to do.
She wondered what Dorian would say if she told him she had never allowed a male atop her like that. Not once. Wondered what he’d say if she told him she’d wanted to sink her teeth into his neck and find out what he tasted like. Put her mouth on other parts and see what he tasted like there.
Manon dragged her hands through her hair and slumped onto the pillow.
Darkness embrace her.
She sent a silent prayer for Abraxos to return soon. Too much time—she had spent too much damn time among these humans and Fae males. She needed to leave. Elide was safe here—the Queen of Terrasen might be many things, but Manon knew she’d protect Elide.
But, with the Thirteen scattered and likely dead, regardless of what Dorian had claimed, Manon wasn’t entirely sure where to go once she left. The world had never seemed quite so vast before.
And so empty.
Even utterly exhausted, Elide barely slept during the long night she and Lorcan swayed in hammocks with the other sailors. The smells, the sounds, the rocking of the sea … All of it nagged, none of it left her settled. A finger seemed to keep prodding her awake, as if telling her to be alert, but … there was nothing.
Lorcan tossed and turned for hours. As if the same force begged him to wake.
As if he was waiting for something.
His strength had been flagging by the time they’d reached the ship, though he had showed no signs of strain beyond a slight tightening in his mouth. But Elide knew he was near what he’d described as a burnout. Knew, because for hours afterward, the small brace of magic around her ankle kept flickering in and out of place.
After Manon had informed her of the uncertain fates of the Thirteen, Elide had kept mostly out of her companions’ way, letting them talk with that red-haired young woman who found them on the beach. So had Lorcan. He’d listened to them debate and plan, his face taut, as if something coiled in him wound itself tighter with every passing moment.
Watching him sleep mere feet away, that harsh face smoothed to softness by slumber, a small part of Elide wondered if she’d somehow brought another danger to the queen. She wondered if the others had noted how often Lorcan’s gaze had been fixed on Aelin’s back. Aimed at her back.
As if sensing her attention, Lorcan opened his eyes. Met her stare without so much as blinking. For a heartbeat, she took in that depthless gaze mere feet away, made ethereal by the silver light before dawn.
He had been willing to offer up his life for her own.
Something softened in that harsh face as his eyes dipped to where her arm dangled out of her hammock, the skin still a bit sore, but … miraculously healed. She’d thanked Gavriel twice now, but he’d brushed it aside with a gentle nod and shrug.
A faint smile bloomed on Lorcan’s harsh mouth as he reached across the space between them and ran his calloused fingers down her arm. “You choose this?” he murmured so that it was little more than the groaning of the hammock ropes. He brushed a thumb down her palm.
Elide swallowed but let herself take in every line of that face. North—they were going home today. “I thought that was obvious,” she said with equal quiet, her cheeks heating.
His fingers laced through hers, some emotion she couldn’t place flickering like starlight in those black eyes. “We need to talk,” he rasped.
It was the shout of the watch that jolted them. The one of pure terror.
Elide nearly flipped out of her hammock, the sailors rushing past. By the time she shoved her hair from her eyes, Lorcan was already gone.
The various decks were packed, and she had to limp onto the stairs to view what had roused them. The other ships were awake and frenzied. With good reason.
Sailing over the western horizon, another armada headed for them.
And Elide knew in her bones it was not one that Aelin had schemed and planned for.
Not as Fenrys breathed, suddenly beside her on the steps. “Maeve.”
61
They had no choice but to meet them. Maeve’s armada had the wind and the current, and they would not even reach the shore before they were caught. And outrunning Fae soldiers … Not an option.
Rowan and Aedion laid out every course for Aelin. All paths arrived at one destination: confrontation. And she was still so drained, so exhausted, that … She knew how this would go.
Maeve had a third more ships. And immortal warriors. With magic.
It took far too little time for those black sails to fill the sky, for them to glean that their enemy’s boats were better-made, their soldiers longer-trained. Rowan and the cadre had overseen much of that training—and the details they provided were not heartening.
Maeve sent one ornately carved rowboat to them, bearing a message.
Surrender—or be sent to the bottom of the ocean. Aelin had until dawn tomorrow to decide.
An entire day. So that the fear would fester and spread among their men.
Aelin met with Rowan and Aedion again. The cadre was not summoned by their queen, though Lorcan paced like a caged beast, Elide watching with a face that impressively revealed nothing.
She had no solution. Dorian remained quiet, though he often glanced between her and Manon. As if some puzzle were laid before him. He never said what.