Lord of the Wolfyn - By Jessica Andersen Page 0,80

his seed inside her after the bonding. They belonged to each other now. She had to know that.

Except he hadn’t told her, had he? And when he had started to say something along those lines, she had hushed him and changed the subject. At the time, he had thought she was feeling too raw and unsettled from their other confidences to add talk of the future into the mix. Now, though, he wondered whether she hadn’t believed there would be one.

He had been so dazzled by the warrior woman astride a fractious bay that he’d lost track that she, too, had spent a long time alone, questioning her worth. How had he forgotten that?

Gods. Had he lost her in truth? He quickly sought their bond; the weak flicker had to mean she was still in the kingdom realm. But for how long? Was she even now working to call a vortex to carry her home?

Let her go, said an inner voice. She’ll be safer there, alive no matter what happens on the island. Maybe you could even travel to her when all this is over. Right now, you need to get yourself onto that island. Time is running out.

He froze. Was this, then, his test? Was he to prove himself by choosing Elden over her? Because despite that logic, his gut said that if she left the realm, he would never see her again. More, it said he had to go after her now, that he didn’t dare tackle the island or the sorcerer without her at his side.

Wishful thinking, came the scoff. But it wasn’t really. It was faith. He had faith in his own gut, faith in the magic he and Reda made together.

Please, gods, don’t let me screw this up. This time the human slang came naturally.

His heart thudded against his ribs and his stomach knotted, but when he moved, it wasn’t toward Blood Lake, the island or the redemption he’d spent twenty years preparing for. Instead, he headed away, following the thin scuff-shadows that only a trained hunter would see. Seeking the bond magic, he thought with all his might, Hang on, sweet Reda. I’m coming. Wait for me and we’ll figure this out together.

Because the dream might have been a fantasy, but it had one thing right: she was his priority. He wasn’t the heir, hadn’t the best of his siblings when it came to anything except his ability to hunt and ride. But with Reda—and for her—he had become a prince. A hero, even.

She made him better, and without her, he wouldn’t be any use to Elden.

Chapter 15

Reda swam slowly up from a sleep that felt too deep, with quivers in her stomach that said something was badly wrong. She was lying on a hard surface and her head hurt, but those inputs seemed strange and faraway, her fragmented dreams so much more real.

Was it all a dream, after all? she thought, but wasn’t sure where the inner voice had come from or what it meant.

Her thoughts scattered like a herd of identical bald-faced bay horses, snorting and blowing as they swerved and collided. Past and present mixed together: she was a little girl of six or seven, sitting cross-legged in the woods opposite her maman, leaning in, wide-eyed. “Tell me more about the magic. Please?” She was a rookie cop going in low while her ride-along partner went high, and then laughing her ass off when they plugged a pair of homicide cops with red paintball splashes. She was ten years old, stumbling into the woods in her nightgown. “Maman? Maman, where are you?” Twenty-six, standing over Benz’s grave, knowing that he wasn’t in there, that dead was dead.

The graveyard had smelled of cut grass and apple trees. Now, though, she wrinkled her nose against an ammoniac taint and the smell of animals. More, the noises were wrong. The graveyard’s silence was broken by restless noises that made her think she was in a barn: sniffs, snuffles and low chuffs, the movement of big bodies in straw.

Where was she? What was wrong with her? What was going on?

She struggled to open her eyes. Then the fog started to clear…and she realized they were already open, covered by a fetid rag that was tightly tied around her head. There was another jammed in her mouth, which was dry and foul. Light and air seeped in around the edges, but just barely.

Crying out, the noise muffled and nasty, she yanked up her hands to tear