Namely one that would be arriving in roughly seven months—give or take a week.
Pressure settled on my shoulders, and I had to change the subject. If not, I was likely to blurt out everything.
“What is it?” he asked, curling his fingers around my chin. He guided my gaze back to his.
My heart tripped over itself. “What do you mean?”
“Something is bothering you,” he said. “Something that’s not about what just happened. What are you not telling me?”
Panic flared in the pit of my stomach as my throat dried, and it became difficult to swallow.
“You’re scared. That, I understand.” His thumb swept over the curve of my chin. “But there’s sadness there too. I can feel it drenching your skin. You’ve been through a lot. I know, but this is different. You weren’t like this when I left you earlier or any other time.”
I froze. He couldn’t know. Caden could sense emotions, which meant hiding anything from him was difficult, but he wasn’t a mind reader. There was no way.
My mind rapidly searched for an explanation. Luckily, I remembered why I’d set out in search of him. If what Aric claimed was true, that would give me a reason to be sad. I latched on to that and ran with it. “It’s what I came down to tell you. I remembered—”
A soft knock on the door interrupted me, followed by Tanner’s voice. “My King? Is everything all right?”
Caden’s gaze didn’t leave me as he all but growled, “Everything’s fine. I’ll be in to see you when I can.”
“Wait!” I shouted, scrambling out of Caden’s lap. He frowned, but I ignored that and the flare of pain that shot through my body.
“I’m…I’m waiting,” came Tanner’s tentative response through the door.
“We’re not done talking,” Caden told me.
“This involves him.” And it did. Also, I seriously doubted that Caden would pursue his earlier questioning while Tanner was present. The older fae was also the perfect buffer. “Please come in.”
The door didn’t open. Confused, I looked at Caden, who sighed. “It’s okay,” he announced, draping an arm along the back of the couch. “You may come in, Tanner.”
My brows lifted. “Really?”
He winked. “I’m the King.”
“Whatever,” I muttered as the door opened.
Tanner entered, dressed as if he were about to go out for a round of golf. Beige, pressed trousers and a light blue polo shirt, wrinkle-free. All he was missing was a glove. He couldn’t look more…human. The silvery hair at his temples was spreading, proof that he didn’t feed from humans. Sometimes I wondered if my mom had developed a bit of a crush on Tanner, one that had been reciprocated. Mom liked him, so I trusted Tanner.
He wasn’t alone.
A dark-haired fae followed him in. Faye’s silvery skin was darker than Tanner’s, often reminding me of a stunning pewter shade. While Faye had the most impressive resting bitch face I’d ever seen, and I often wasn’t sure if she actually liked me, she had a no-nonsense mentality, and I trusted her. She, like Kalen, another fae, were warriors. They didn’t feed on humans, so they could be killed a lot easier than those who did, but they were still faster and stronger than any human could ever hope to be.
Faye’s cousin Benji was one of the missing younglings, and I suspected that he wouldn’t be returning to the hotel. There was a good chance that he, like the others, had somehow gotten ahold of Devil’s Breath, a liquor laced with a drug derived from the borrachero tree. It turned humans into virtual zombies, and the fae into evil creatures controlled by the Winter fae.
“We’re sorry to interrupt,” Tanner said, clasping his hands behind him as he glanced over at me. “We were just worried.”
“We heard you shout in the hall,” Faye explained.
Well, that explained how Caden had found me. “I’m fine.”
Faye lifted a dark brow. “You don’t look fine.”
I couldn’t be offended by Faye’s bluntness. “I feel better than I look.”
“I would hope,” Tanner murmured.
Faye walked to where I stood, her gaze coasting over my face. My muscles stiffened as I forced myself not to flinch or take a step back. It had nothing to do with Faye, but with the fact that Aric had been really good at teaching me to be wary of anyone getting too close. Oddly aware of the tension radiating off Caden, I held myself still as she placed a hand on my shoulder. “I heard that it was you who killed Aric.”
“It was.”
Her eyes glimmered. “The next time I need backup, I know who to call.”
Pride swept through me like golden fire. Out of everyone, Faye never doubted my ability to fight and defend myself, even though she saw my thirst for revenge as a risk. She hadn’t just seen me as the Willow to the Buffy, something that had taken a while for Ivy to recognize.
“I’m not sure how I feel about that,” Caden said.
“It’s a good thing you don’t have a say in what I do,” I retorted.
Tanner’s eyes widened while the glimmer in Faye’s deepened.
“But I do have a say in what she does,” Caden remarked.
I shot him a look, to which he simply grinned. Then I remembered what Caden had told me. Ivy and Faye had helped to change my bandages while I was unconscious. “Thank you for helping to take care of me.”
She inclined her head. “You would do the same for me, would you not?”
“Of course.”
“Because that’s what friends do for one another, even human and fae friends,” she said, and a hint of a smile pulled at her lips when I rolled my eyes. “More importantly, that’s what warriors do for one another.”
Warriors.
She was talking about me.
Twice in one day, someone had referred to me as a warrior. I liked that. A lot.
Tanner replaced Faye and took my hands in his. “I am relieved to see you here. We didn’t lose hope that you would be returned, but that hope didn’t lessen our fears. After what happened to you and…and Merle, I couldn’t…” He trailed off, lips tightening in a grimace as he cleared his throat.
A ball formed in the back of my throat as I squeezed his hands. “I know.”
His pale eyes searched mine. “I am relieved to see you up and moving about, but are you sure you’re ready for that?”
“You know,” Caden began as Tanner let go of my hands, “I was saying just the same thing to her.”
“I’m ready. Besides, I think getting up and moving around will help with the whole healing thing. Anyway,” I cut in before Caden could reply. “I hope I didn’t interrupt your meeting,”
Tanner appeared as if he wished to say that I had, but he seemed to know better than to say that in front of Caden. “Not at all.” His lie was so smooth, it brought a faint smile to my face. I knew that Tanner liked me—well, liked me when I wasn’t calling Caden names. But I also suspected that he would not be pleased to learn that there was a relationship between Caden and me. Then again, I imagined he already knew that something was going on. “We were discussing a few important details—”