Page 162 of A Sanctuary from Shadow
Regret shone in Pete’s eyes. “Not that I saw, no.” He paused, watching me. “How many beyns did you save, Shorty?”
He meant the question as a boon for my sadness, but it only served to embitter me. “Thirty. Thirty out of hundreds.”
“We can still help the hundreds. Royal slavers always take their quarry to the Spring Palace first—for inspection and sale. The process takes months. If we kill Gentian before the beyns are sold, then the king might come to his senses and rethink this whole enterprise.”
At that, I wept. The king would’veneverstruck such a bargain with Gentian—the feyr who’d killed his wife. I couldn’t say the same about the rat running the show in his absence. Or about who’d be doing it now that Daddy was gone.
To say I was morose for the rest of the day was putting it mildly. Pete was melancholy too—quieter, less apt to joke—and once he deemed it safe for us to slow our pace, his usual stride on the road seemed to slog. But he didn’t wallow. No, that wasallme. For several miserable hours.
And then I gotangry. So angry, in fact, that Sionna wouldn’t come near me as I fumed in the back of the wagon, the air around me sulfuric.
Who the hell was this rat—or rats—bargaining with Gentian? Betraying my father, my entire family. Were they in league with Gentian when my mother died? For how long had they been working toward this plot for mass bondage? For sex trafficking? Forwombtrafficking? For this abomination to begin so soon after Daddy’s death—it wasn’t a coincidence.
And how dare Gentian! For seeking to ruin my life! My family! The safety and happiness of my people! How fuckingdarehe think he had the right to corrupt, and manipulate, and punish, and enslave—andrule!
Who thefuckdid he think he was? This wasmykingdom! Mine to protect! And I’d be damned if I’d allow some pompous, arrogant, narcissistic, avaricious, cruel, immoral motherfucker to take his overblown, petty sibling rivalry out on my subjects without meeting furious retribution.
The Shadow Prince was asking for it, and I was going to give it to him.
“Stop the cart!” I snarled around dusk. “Stop!”
Pete was just halting our progress to the obnoxious irritation of Bob when I stumbled from the wagon and hobbled, still rather sore from that morning, toward the rocky mountain wall rising sharply to our right. The road we traversed had grown much steeper, more precarious. Ferns and boxwoods dotted the stony path, tall trees now scarce.
Without explanation, I paused just feet from the wall and clamped my lips. Then I funneled all the fire I’d suppressed earlier into my fingers. I chucked a burning ball of turquoise at the hilly rise, a petulant child throwing pebbles. Luckily, the ball didn’t ricochet but burst apart like a firecracker.
Pete stayed back with the cart and the animals as I threw ball after fiery ball at the wall, trying to spend all my rage, resentment, and devastation like a bottle of lighter fluid.
Finally, I threw a massive bomb that blazed up and set the drier shrubs on fire. It boomed as I clenched my hands and shrieked at my nemesis in a voice so jagged it tore my throat, “What thefuckdid we ever do to you? What did those beyns ever do to you?”
My fit only stoked the combustion inside me, and my wind broke from me without my permission. It whipped the flames I’d created into twisters, their heat barely phasing me. They could’ve licked the skin right off my body, and it would’ve made no difference. My pain couldn’t be any greater than it already was.
I clutched my ears. “Why won’t you just crawl back under the fucking rock you came from like the fucking worm you are and leave us all the fuck alone?Why!”
Another firebomb exploded out of me just before Pete grabbed me like an idiot and swept me into his damn flammable arms. “Shorty!” He clutched my sweltering face in his already blistering hands, concern wild in his eyes. “Control your fire before you burn out.”
My breath gusting, I cried, “I want my life back, Pete! I want my home and my family and my friends! He took everything from me!Everyfucking thing!”
I heard my flames lashing, smelled the smoke choking the air, but Pete’s flushing face was the only thing I saw. “Breathe,” he urged, still not pulling back despite the sweat beading his forehead, soaking his unkempt hair. Dear Goddess, if he didn’t get away from me, he was going to melt.
Trying to stop myself from hurting him, I shuddered inward. Deeply. Which was like catharsis. And a broken dam.
“I want him back!” I exclaimed. “I want my dad. I want my dog. I want my cats. I want my books and my own clothes and my own bedroom and a goddamn toilet with toilet paper! I want iced coffee and pop concerts and movie theaters and game nights with my friends. Oh,Goddess, I want my friends.”And Vi and Ace, I thought, my tears crashing. “I just—I want to be agirlagain! I don’t want to be a Danann beyn fae whatever-the-hell-I-am! I want to be a girl—a woman—without magic. I just want to beme!”
My heart now bared, my passion fizzled. My firestorms slowly calmed.
“He took that from me,” I whimpered to Pete, who simply stood with me—hearing me. “Gentian tookmeaway from me.”
The most painful part of it all.
Pete’s Adam’s apple bobbed, his eyes swimming. “That’s what he does, Shorty.”
“That’s what he’ll do to those beyns who’ve been culled,” I gushed into my palm, my fingers trembling. “That’s what he’ll do to Maggie.”
Pete’s lips quivered as he pawed away my tears, gentle as a bear. “Not if we stop him.”
I knew Pete would say that. I also knew what I’d say in response. That decision had made itself the moment I’d seen those innocent beyns, fae with lives and families, lined up like broken fillies for sale to the highest bidder. Unconscionable, yes—but that wasn’t the only factor working in Pete’s favor.
Shuddering, I gazed up at his grave face and thought that now, in this barbarous land, I had a friend—someone who had my back. And it wasn’t weird that I’d forged such a bond with the guy sent to kidnap me for the creep trying to destroy my life. Not anymore. I stopped checking the warmth I felt toward him. Because I now trusted my own instincts, my own goddamn dreams entreating me to have faith in him.
