Captive of Wolves (Bound to the Fae #1) - Eva Chase Page 0,47
drawstring.
He tosses the pouch onto the bed next to me as if he can’t get it out of his hand quickly enough. Even though it lands a couple of feet from me, I flinch.
“Sorry,” August says quickly. “It’s hard for me to handle that, even contained in the leather. It was hard getting it at all.” He laughs a little sheepishly, running his hand through his dark auburn hair.
The pouch lies there on the duvet motionless. I eye it to make sure it isn’t going to sprout little fangs or spew out spiders or some other horrible thing, and then I glance back at August. “Why? What’s in it?”
“Salt.” His mouth twists again as if even the word bothers him. “I had to go to the human world to get it. It and iron are the only two materials toxic to fae.”
I was right about the metals then, but I don’t know what to make of this gift. I pick up the pouch and tug it open with careful fingers.
It does indeed hold a teaspoon or two of chunky salt crystals, the mineral scent mingling with the musk of the leather when I lean close. My brow furrows. This doesn’t make any sense.
“Why are you giving this to me?”
August ducks his head, a shadow darkening his golden eyes. “I don’t trust Kellan. He’s already pushing the boundaries, and he’s made it clear he likes harassing you. There isn’t enough salt in there to really hurt him, but if he comes after you, if you think he might hurt you, toss that in his face while you call for help, and it should get him to back off long enough for one of us to get to you and stop him.”
It takes a moment for the full import of what he’s said to sink in. He’s giving me something that I could use against him and his colleagues. He’s putting my security over his loyalty to his cadre and his lord—only in a small way, but more than it would ever have occurred to me to hope for.
I’m abruptly ashamed of my nervousness at his behavior. He was acting shifty on my behalf, not against me.
He raises his head to meet my eyes again, and I can’t tune out the flutter that passes through my chest. He’s earned that affection, fair and square.
“Thank you,” I say. “It really means a lot. I guess…” I have to keep the pouch somewhere the others won’t notice, but where I can easily grab it. I tuck it into the hip pocket of my jeans, making sure it’s out of sight but with the cord right where a hasty finger could snag on it.
August clears his throat. “I also wanted to apologize. For the other day, with Kellan. I don’t regret stepping in, of course, but I shouldn’t have leapt straight into a fight. I was so angry, seeing him treat you like that—but then I scared you even more. That’s the last thing I would have wanted to do.”
He sounds so torn up about it that I immediately believe him. Without thinking, I scoot forward so I can reach for his hand. A flicker of surprise crosses his face, but he squeezes my fingers, and the longing to have him wrap his arms right around me, to envelop me in his protective intent, floods every other thought from my mind.
It takes me a second to find my words again. “It’s okay. I know you were only trying to help.” I’m not sure I was really scared of him in that moment or just tangled up in the memories of the wolves I faced before, the violence of that past encounter echoed in the fight in front of me.
August grips my fingers a little tighter and then lets them go. “Still. I won’t let it happen again.”
The pouch forms a soft pressure against my hip. He got it from the human world—from the world where I belong. The one I have to get back to.
After he’s made a gesture like that, it feels like a betrayal to ask the question rising in my throat. But I have to know. “Whitt mentioned that the keep is on the fringes of the Mists. Did you have to go very far to get to the human world?”
“It wasn’t any trouble getting there,” August says. “The harder part was finding a bit of salt in a situation where I could grab it without having to come in too close