Smolder (Crown of Fae #3) - Sharon Ashwood Page 0,47

the window the same way Fionn had gone. He needed the freedom of the open sky and stars. He wasn’t meant to be earthbound, much less domesticated. He was the Phoenix Prince and meant to fly.

It struck him, with the bloody sharpness of a spear, that he finally understood his father’s death.

16

“You don’t trust me,” Anna said once Morran had left the room.

Leena looked up. She’d been staring at nothing, lost in a haze of pain and fatigue. “My brother has been infected in body and soul. I’m trying to save him. Forgive me, but everything is subject to that one concern.”

Anna shrugged, fiddling with the light in her hand. There was one panel of soft light overhead—enough to see by—but Anna’s device cast sharp, dramatic shadows. “I get it. Just remember that I am a friend, not an enemy.”

“Noted.” Leena shifted, wincing when her ribs complained. “Fionn is all the family I have left. I don’t want to lose him.”

“Sadly, the fae are good at losing things,” Anna said softly. “I just lost my friend, Burtock, to a mission.”

Leena remembered the shirt Morran had borrowed. This friend was close enough to leave his laundry behind.

Anna’s lips twitched, evidently reading her face. It wasn’t quite a smile, but it softened her lean features. “It’s not like that. He’s looked after me from the time I was a child, more a father than my own was. But now, he’s off with the dragons on a wild goose chase in a far-off realm. He’s left me here to deal with this.” She nodded her chin toward the patient on the bed.

“That is a great deal of responsibility,” Leena said.

“I don’t mind providing security, but the city is not my favorite place. I’m not an urban wolf.”

“Then why stay?”

“Burtock taught me loyalty to the cause of Faery. Or perhaps hatred of the Shades who killed my family. Sometimes, it’s hard to tell the difference.”

Leena understood that far more than she cared to say. “And so, you keep fighting.”

“There’s a point where it becomes impossible to stop.” Anna rubbed her forehead. There was blood where she’d cut it earlier, and a bruise was forming around the wound. “I’ve given too much to walk away, so I keep going and pray it wasn’t a bad investment.”

Her words described so many Kelthians that Leena knew—angry, proud, lost, desperate people. She rose, every joint stiff. “Let me clean your injury.”

“I’m fine. It’s nothing.”

A shapeshifter could heal by transforming to another form, but that took energy Anna probably didn’t have at the moment.

“Be still.” Leena went to the room’s tiny sink. While Anna remained sitting, Leena did what she could with water and paper towels, and then a simple healing spell.

“What lies in Barleycorn’s vault?” Kifi asked. The cat had been so quiet that Leena had almost forgotten her.

Anna looked up sharply, ending Leena’s examination of her handiwork. “How do you know about that, feline?”

“Temple cats know much,” Kifi replied, her back arching in a stretch. “Is there something there General Juradoc wants?”

“As I told Morran, I’m not certain. I’ve seen some of his collection, but most are just relics of sentimental value. Broken crowns, famous swords, that sort of thing. Mind you, there are a thousand places he could hide something. John is clever.”

There was a wistfulness in her tone that struck Leena. She looked at the man on the bed again, wondering what he was like when he was moving, laughing, and—if she read things right—being an object of fascination to Anna. He must have enjoyed fine things, for his nightclothes were made of ink-black silk and he wore a heavy neck chain and golden pendant. The robe hanging on the back of the door was soft, dark velvet. Even sick and in bed, there was no question of his status. “He’s a bit mysterious, isn’t he?”

Anna gave a soft laugh. “He’s the definition of it, but he has to be. If anyone is going to break the Shades, it will be him. He’s spent centuries researching their kind, searching for a weakness.”

“And you’ve been working at his side,” Leena added.

“For a little while. Enough to feel the heady excitement of being around that much intelligence and charisma.” There was that wistful voice again, that hint of a bruised heart.

“Morran is a little like that,” Leena ventured. “I can’t imagine what he was like…before.”

“Be careful around him,” Anna said, serious again. “I saw Prince Karth’s phoenix. It was under the power of the Shades, webbed in