The Wind's Call (The Broken Lands #4) - T.A. White Page 0,142

his jaw, with faint wistfulness. "You have your warlord to look after. You can't be putting your life in danger for the likes of me. Not when there will be no reward."

His eyes flared, but he didn't say anything.

She took a step back, breaking their connection and feeling its loss acutely.

Her smile was stiff as she looked over the small group. "Good luck."

Jason had a forlorn expression on his face as Eva moved away, her eyes smarting. Saying goodbye was harder than she thought, but it was better this way.

The fox trailed her. Eva stopped, crouching next to him. “You can’t come with me. Go with them. What I’m about to do will be dangerous.”

The fire fox made a lost sound that Eva hardened her heart against. There was no point in the fox putting himself in danger when the only reason he was there, was because of Eva.

"You’re not really going to leave her behind, are you?" Jason's angry voice asked as Eva moved out of hearing range, a part of her begging Caden to stay.

There was no response from Caden; then there was no time to think of him or anything but what she had to do.

*

Caden throttled the urge to strangle the daft woman who had walked away from him. Did she really think he was going to walk away? Leave her here with a small army set to descend at any moment?

Anger, hot and all-consuming licked his insides. It was good he'd have people to kill soon.

Self-sacrificing bullshit, that's what that was. He wouldn't stand for it. When this was over, they were going to have a long talk, one where he did all the talking and she'd sit there and listen.

He forced the fury and the rage back, beating it into submission with long practice. Warriors who didn't control their emotions died quickly.

Calm again, he forced himself to look at the situation pragmatically.

Caden had been in dozens of combat situations over the years. He could read the flow of a battle as well as a scout could read trail sign. His instincts were telling him there was no way they could succeed. Retreat was the best option.

Judging by the stiff back of the woman walking away from him, that advice wouldn't be well-received.

She'd fight him tooth and nail, resist every step of the way.

He could force her.

For half a second he even considered it. She'd hate him for it, but at least she'd be alive.

Before he'd gotten to know her, her pain and fears, he would have done it and not lost a second of sleep over it. Even if it meant she would no longer be his.

But he did know her. Intimately. Inside and out. Her mind as well as her body. In a way he hadn't allowed himself to know many.

If he forced her to leave the Kyren, it would destroy her. Slowly, agonizingly.

He'd seen the nightmares she faced. He couldn't add to them.

He knew better than most, there were fates worse than death. Losing your identity, your core self, facing the fact you weren't who you thought you were was one of them.

A betrayal of that magnitude might destroy her, even if her body survived.

"Anateri are supposed to protect," Jason hissed at him.

"Hush," Caden barked. "You don't know what you're talking about."

The boy's view of him was romanticized if he thought that. The Anateri were killers, pure and simple. Every single one of them. They were the worst of the worst, chained to Fallon's will by unbreakable bonds.

Only now, a tiny woman with more strength than sense seemed to have her slim hands wrapped around his chain.

The fire fox looked up at him, dejection in his posture. He didn’t like being left behind any more than Caden did.

"Come." Caden turned and walked away, leaving behind the softness she pulled from him. There was no room for it with what he was about to do.

The fox padded after him, the same air of bloodthirstiness present that Caden had glimpsed while they’d fought next to each other before. The fox knew it was time to go hunting.

Caden’s smile was grim and humorless, the stuff of nightmares. The throwaway, Kent, flinched at the sight of it. Even Jason fell silent, though Caden sensed that wouldn't hold for long.

And Eva thought she wasn't brave. If only that were true. Leave it to him to find such a contrary woman as the person to warm his cold core.

There was no way to beat the enemy—but perhaps Caden