Page 105 of A Dance with the Fae Prince (Married to Magic 2)
There are only three now who are keeping pace with the horse. Davien is right. We can outrun them. We can do this.
Yet no sooner do I think that than an arrow whizzes past our horse’s snout, causing the stallion to rear back. I manage to hold on, but Davien doesn’t have as good grip on the beast as I do. As he tilts off balance, I feel him pulling me with him, until he releases his hold so we aren’t both unseated.
“Davien, no!” I scream as the stallion rights himself.
“Go!” he booms. “Don’t stop!” Davien jumps to his feet, claws unsheathed, facing the remaining Butchers.
“I—”
“Go!” he speaks over me, hearing my objection before I can say it. “I won’t let them get you or the necklace.”
A sticky, hot, sickening feeling overtakes me, chasing away the cool air on my clammy skin. If I leave him behind, here and now, they’re going to kill him. I can’t… I must.
“Katria, go!” he shouts a final time.
With all the pain of ripping open a wound, I give the horse a kick and we begin sprinting once more. Even as I’m riding away, my neck is craned back toward him. I watch as two of the three remaining Butchers descend on him, only one chasing me now.
I have to go back.
I can’t go back.
If I don’t go back, they’ll kill him.
I can’t let them kill him. I love him. I have to go back.
No, the voice of reason is quiet and calm, because you love him, you can’t go back. Going back would be the wrong kind of love, the reckless kind that disregards his most earnest wishes. It would be a selfish love, where I put what I want above what he does. Going back would mean handing over the magic that countless fae—that Giles and Shaye—gave their lives to protect.
Is this choice love?
I press my eyes closed and let out a scream of frustration and agony that harmonizes in the most horrible way with a cry of pain from Davien in the distance.
Don’t kill him, I plead with fate, with luck, with whatever old god might be listening. Maybe Boltov wants him alive. My stomach clenches. No, if they take him to the High Court, he’ll face a fate worse than death.
No matter what, he’s going to die, and I never had a chance to outright tell him I loved him.
I dodge another arrow, pushing the horse onward. I continue at our relentless pace, avoiding the shadows, and running as though our life depends on it. I don’t relent even after the final Butcher has fallen out of sight, the magic of their cowl expended.
Davien’s cries of agony chase me far longer than any of Boltov’s men and women.
