myself how good being this close to him felt. He wove the bike expertly through traffic while I murmured directions in his ear. I just kept pulling up that vision of the beach house where we’d come, the blue door there, and my seeker ability pulled me closer and closer, always nudging me where to go.
My arm was steadily dripping blood even as I tried to hold the wound and staunch it. The icicle had melted and now it was just an open wound. I peered over my shoulder to find that there were little tears in my wings. I didn’t dare try to flap them or fly, for fear of injuring myself further.
Finally, Liam pulled up to the beach house and I stumbled off the bike. Dizziness overwhelmed me and Liam turned to look at my arm with concern. “You have to make a tourniquet!” he shouted incredulously. “Weren’t you trained in battle injuries?”
Sure, bud. We just fucking take battle injury training in Faerie. Yes, I had been battle trained, but not for something like this. My mother probably hadn’t wanted to scare me, but now I was seeing the error of her ways. I wouldn’t make it to my twenty-first birthday at this rate.
He pulled off his shirt and my mouth went dry.
Holy mother of Fae.
His chiseled torso looked like it was etched from stone. His eight-pack was bulked out under tan tight skin and his pants were so low I could see the V-shape of his hip muscles pointing to the pleasure zone. He stepped closer to me, bringing the heat of his body with him as I shook my head a little to clear it. Using his teeth, he tore a long strip from his shirt and tightly knotted it above my arm. I winced as it caused the pain to flare, but sighed in relief when I noticed it stopped the blood.
“Lily!” Elle shouted as she landed hard behind us, holstering her gun.
“Don’t put that away!” Liam snapped at her. “Who trained you both?” Liam looked incuriously at Elle, who pulled the gun back out and looked around as if the Winter King were going to run out of nowhere.
Elle growled at him. “I’d say we’re doing just fine, seeing as though we just rescued your ass!”
“Barely,” Liam snapped back, tenderly staunching the cuts on my wings with his shirt. “Why didn’t you put up a shield?” he asked me.
Fuck. The shield.
“I … I’ve only practiced back home … not—”
He sighed. “Are you all they have left?” His blue eyes threaded with molten lava locked on to mine and my heart quickened.
I nodded.
“My mom … I’m the last seeker.”
He looked angry; it was weird. Why the fuck did he care? We were on opposite sides.
“Come on,” I told him, and started to walk to the blue door, placing my hand on the handle.
He shook his head. “I can’t go back there with you. I don’t belong there. I have a life on Earth, okay? People depend on me.”
Elle laughed, full-on laughed. “Some life! You almost died back there, and they’re probably right behind us. What good are you to your people if you’re dead?”
Last time I checked, all of his people had been killed, but I wasn’t going to mention that right now.
He looked at my best friend with a murderous glare. “Fine. Just to get a ride back to Seattle.”
“And a healer! Have you seen your leg?” I pointed to his blood-soaked jeans. He looked down with a frown and growled.
“Fine. And a healer.”
“Fine,” I added, unsure why I was so mad. Had I expected him to run away to Faerie and be my soulmate?
Maybe … but not anymore. He would clearly rather steal the Earth crystals and hoard them for his halfling friends. I’d somehow forgotten he was a leader of a rebel branch of the Sons of Darkness. Something I would do well to remember in the future.
Was he an evil asshole like his dad with a breeding program? No. But he still wanted Faerie’s crystals and that wasn’t right.
The door suddenly opened and I let go, startled. Mara was standing there with a knowing look in her eye.
She glared at Liam. “You again?”
He shrugged, a lopsided smirk pulling at his lips. “Miss me?”
And with that, we all entered Mara’s house while I battled within myself on what to do with this man.
“You’re hurt!” Mara shrieked as we stepped inside, just now noticing my injuries. I waved her off with my good