Page 160 of A Touch of Poison
And I wouldn’t ask him to.
Despite that, I couldn’t get him or his shadows out of my mind—what he’d said as much as what he’d done.
It cast everything in a new light.
The bindings had put the responsibility on him—or so I’d told the old lessons that tried to tell me that my body was my husband’s and no one else’s. They were full ofshouldn’ts and cruel words, yet I could shake them off and point to Bastian and sayhewas the one in charge. I had only to obey.
His searing gaze in the mirror had been much louder, saying that I was desirable and wanted—wanted forme, not for my family name or to fulfil wifely obligations.
Riding his shadows had felt potent, and stronger still with his urging voice hot in my ear.
It felt nothing like obeying anyone else. My queen or society’s rules or my family.
It feltpowerful.
These ideas shouldn’t fit together. Yet as we rode and I pondered, I understood the factor that resolved the apparent contradictions.
Will you obey?He had given me the option.
I hadchosento do as he told me. I always had the power to stop it at any time.
In the rest of my life, I had never had those things.
“Obedience is power,” I murmured, “when it is a choice.”
“What’s that?” He raised his eyebrows at me, and I clamped my mouth shut.
“Uh. Nothing.”
“Just because youcanlie doesn’t mean you’re always good at it.”
My face flushed. “I was just—”
He stiffened, gaze drifting to one side. “Don’t react, but we’re not alone.”
A chill raced through my veins, yet I made myself chuckle as though he’d said something funny. “What should I do, then?”
“Subtly check past me, behind and to the right.”
I nodded and scratched my forehead, using the opportunity to flick my eyes in that direction.
A shape briefly visible between the trunks, but soon gone. “I saw it. A person.”
“Hmm.” His jaw tightened. “We keep going. I’ll listen out for them. As soon as we’re out of sight, I’ll send my double out.”
Throat tight, I loosened the buckle attaching my bow to the saddle.
At the next fork in the road, he steered us left, away from our unknown tail.
Bastian cocked his head as we rode on and murmured that they’d swapped to the other side. We turned right at the next opportunity.
“Shit.”
“What?” I asked, eyeing his fingers squeezing the reins.
“They switched again. They’re herding us west.”
Cold crept through me. “If they’re fae, they could’ve moved so quietly you wouldn’t be able to hear them, right? They made that sound on purpose.”
