He said the words with such longing. The words she had said to him in the same manner. Her cheeks heated. Her obsession had burned away, but she’d been sixteen then, and he’d just turned twenty and the king of his own empire. More beautiful and more dangerous than ever before. She’d replaced her obsession with desire.
“Should I continue?”
“No,” she growled.
She remembered what had happened next and why he was trying to use it against her now.
“I’d love to recount that night for you, if you’d like, Ker,” he said, stopping behind her and running his finger across her shoulder.
“Let’s not,” she got out, taking a step away from him. Trying to hide the hitch in her breathing.
Dozan Rook might be her first obsession, her first love, her first everything, but she wasn’t stupid enough to make him her second too.
“Pity,” he breathed, still so close. “Then, perhaps, you’ll explain to me why you brought the prince of the House of Shadows into my territory.”
She pointed at her shoulder. “Stab wound, remember? He brought me.”
“Then, what were you doing out with him?”
“Aw, jealous, Dozan?” she asked teasingly.
His jaw was set. “The House of Shadows is not an ally. They hate humans and half-Fae. They torture and kill us for sport. They are even worse than the Society and that damn terrorist organization, the Red Masks. What happened to you in that alley five years ago is the least of what they would do to you. So, why exactly do you trust one of their kind?”
Kerrigan took a small step back. Dozan actually sounded… worried? No, that couldn’t be right. She knew the history of the House of Shadows, how much they hated humans and half-Fae. After all, Fordham had treated her poorly for weeks. In fact, they still hadn’t managed to say more than a few pleasant words to each other. But he’d still offered to help her after she had helped him. And he hadn’t made any kind of move to torture and kill her. He seemed like a sad, broody boy who wrote sad, broody boy poetry.
“And yet, he’s here,” she countered. “Not in the House of Shadows.”
“You think that’s because of the goodness in his heart? He’s here to win a dragon. What is someone from the House of Shadows going to do with a dragon?” he demanded. “What they always did before the walls were put up to protect us—war. If you do not see that, then you are deluded.”
It didn’t make sense. Why would her visions be pointing her to help Fordham if he wanted to start war? As far as she could tell, her visions pointed her toward ways to stop catastrophe… not create it.
“I think you’re wrong about him.”
“Ah,” Dozan said, crossing his arms. “And what makes you think so? Is he playing all the right strings for you?”
“As you did?” she spat.
“Mark my words, that prince out there is not what he seems. And he will be the end of you, if you let him.”
She scoffed.
Dozan might be a lot of things, but he was not prophetic. He didn’t like Fordham and clearly hated his people for their history. But he was just judging him for all the things others had done. As so many had done to Dozan for his family and their murders. She didn’t know what Fordham was doing here, but she no longer accepted that his plan was to torture and kill her.
“This isn’t the reason I came here,” she said, crossing her own arms to match.
“You didn’t just come to be healed and yell at me? I’m shocked, princess.”
She glared at him. “You didn’t even ask what happened.”
“Does it matter?”
“When an assassin is set out after me, then yes.”
“An assassin?” he asked incredulously.
“She already killed Lyam, and she tried to kill me tonight.”
He shot her a dubious look. “Who would want you dead that much?”
“That’s the question, isn’t it?” She had no clue who wanted her dead that much. Plenty of people believed that half-Fae shouldn’t have rights, but there wasn’t a long line of them who wanted her specifically dead. “I have the assassin’s knife.”
“You are full of surprises. Let’s see it.” He held his hand out.
She smiled dangerously. “Fordham has it.”
Dozan’s face froze in anger. He looked like he wanted to yell at her for her stupidity or possibly throw her back down on the pallet. There was a fine line between pain and pleasure when it came to Dozan Rook.
“Fine,” he said and opened the door.
An angry princeling thundered into the small room. His storm-cloud eyes were a hurricane. His body a barely contained ripple of power.
“The knife,” she said, holding out her hand before he could say anything that would make Dozan not help them.
“You’re healed,” Fordham said.
“You actually seem pleased by that fact,” Dozan said, his words one second away from striking him down. “I wouldn’t have guessed that from your kind.”
Fordham looked at Dozan as if he were the scum under his boot. All of Dozan’s carefully worded criticisms of Fordham’s home and character came to the surface in that moment. He looked the imperious prince, hatred flaring across his features at being addressed by a lowly human. But what came out of his mouth…
“My kind or not, she was in my care,” he snarled at Dozan. “And thus, my responsibility.”
“You two can bicker all day if you’d like—after we figure out where that knife came from,” she snapped, stepping between them.
Fae prince versus human crime lord. She had a guess who would win that fight. Especially after seeing Fordham’s dark magic unleash against the assassin. She knew Dozan had tricks up his sleeve. He ruled here after all. But it wasn’t something she wanted to witness. Men!
Fordham slowly retrieved the knife from his cloak and passed it to Kerrigan.
“Thank you,” she said as she turned the blade in her palm. It was light, about eight inches long, and as sharp as death. The pommel wasn’t fancy, but it had a small bird engraved into the handle. “This is the knife the assassin tried to kill me with. Can you tell us who made it?”
Dozan gripped the handle and twirled the blade in his hand. Show-off. He’d always been skilled at blade work. Kerrigan had taken lessons in the mountain to try to catch up, but he stayed one step ahead of her. As infuriating as it was.
“Tendrille steel,” he said faintly.
“Well, that explains how she cut through my shield,” Kerrigan grumbled.
Tendrille was a pure metal found north in the heart of the Cascade Mountains. Legend said that when the dragons had been exiled from their homeland of Domara, the gods had cast them from the sky and to this world. That act left behind enough Tendrille to fill a mountain—the Holy Mountain. The dragons’ most sacred site and a place where Tendrille would never be mined.
Making it as precious as it was rare. It was the strongest substance on earth, light as a feather, and immune to magic. Most weapons were made of an alloy with just a small percentage of Tendrille. They couldn’t cut through shields, as this one surely had, but it made them strong and light and valuable.