Mist's Edge (The Broken Lands #2) - T.A. White Page 0,61

the paper in her excitement.

She smoothed it flat. Her excitement turned to confusion as she read the words. The letter fell to her side as she stared unseeing at the canvas walls, the words burned into her mind.

Come home.

Bring your friends.

A short message but a powerful one.

Shea didn’t have time to process, to decide on a course of action before Fallon was pushing through the partition. Shea wasn’t able to mask her unease before Fallon took note of her. He stopped at the sight of her, his big body going on alert as he examined the small space for potential threats.

“What is it?” Fallon asked, his eyes sharp and assessing as he noticed the slightly lost expression on Shea’s face.

Shea stared back at him blankly. What did she say? Should she say anything?

Fallon’s eyes dropped to the note in Shea’s hands, correctly concluding that the piece of paper was what had so unsettled her. “What is that?”

Fallon advanced on Shea, taking a seat beside her, his presence a coiled, wild thing. The potential for violence was in every line of his body. Not against Shea. She’d never once felt threatened by him, not even when she had considered him, if not the enemy, then a potential hostile force. This violence was directed at whatever had threatened her, and against it, he would have no mercy.

She stared at him, noting how his gaze went to the note in her hand. He didn’t reach for it, allowing her to decide.

She loved him for that. He could be such a dominant force, dictatorial, hard-headed, but when it counted—at least with her—he was patient. He recognized some things could not be forced. Even if you were a warlord used to getting your way.

How would things change once she revealed the note? Because they would.

There was no point hiding it. Nor would it have been right to do so, even if her first instinct was to pretend the note never existed. There was this dread in her, as if the note would signal a change so profound it would affect everything that had come before.

“I came in because I needed a moment to myself,” Shea said. The note had thrown her off balance. It took a minute to find her words. “I’m not used to so many people all the time. It can be difficult.”

Fallon’s eyes had an intense focus as he scanned her face. “This is why you’ve been ducking your guards.”

The statement surprised a laugh out of Shea. “I see Caden had a little chat with you.”

His touch on her shoulder was gentle, there and gone in one moment to the next. “Of course, he did. He knew I’d want to know.”

Of course, he had. Shea had known she wouldn’t have much chance of convincing Caden otherwise. The loyalty of Fallon’s Anateri would always be to him first and foremost.

“I hadn’t realized that you were slipping away to escape the press of humanity though.”

“Would it have made a difference?”

His expression was slightly lost as he looked at her—like he wanted to say something but didn’t know how. There was an edge in his eyes, a heightened awareness.

“You know how I feel about your safety.” She looked away. Yes, she did. That was the problem. His sigh was heavy. “Perhaps we can find a compromise.”

It wasn’t a capitulation, but it was a start.

“I came in here because I wanted a moment.” She gave him the letter. “I found this. At first I thought it was from you.”

She didn’t say anything else, letting him read the words and draw his own conclusions.

Fallon read the note, his forehead furrowing. He read it once, twice, then a third time. His confusion transformed to understanding, and then into an incandescent rage—his expression filling with wrath, forming a visage terrifying enough that Shea could understand why villages surrendered immediately when he rode up to their front gates. His face was the stuff of nightmares, reminding people that there were monsters in the world. He was so darkly intimidating that Shea knew if he ever aimed such an expression her way that she’d surrender too. That, or run really far away to a place he could never find her.

“You’re not going,” he roared. He was on his feet and out of the room in the next moment.

Shea stared after him, surprised at the vehemence of his response. Concern in her eyes, Daere pushed aside the partition that had been partially ripped down and now sported a fist sized hole in