Page 81 of A Sanctuary from Shadow
The memory of that brief exchange slammed into me, shattering my remaining reserve against confrontation. And I lost my shit.
“Are you fuckingkiddingme?” I exclaimed, jerking to my feet, boot still in hand.
He rose as well, towering over me. “Christ, the mouth on you—”
“You’re standing there all self-righteous, accusing me of being a racist snob because I warned you I wasn’t a slut?” I hopped like a flea. “That I didn’t want to sleep with you?” I threw my boot at him. It hit him square in the chest and dropped.
He rolled his eyes.
“You were laying me down in your fucking bed, dude! Where I come from, girls have to question any guy who gets too close too quick, regardless of his social standing. They hand out rape whistles in health class, damnit!”
“And where is it that you come from? Sodom and Gomorrah?”
“Nope. Just America.”
The set of his shoulders stiffened. “That’s a crock of shite if I’ve ever heard it.”
“No, it’s not. I grew up in the good ole US of A. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. In a middle class neighborhood with lots of true,freehuman friends. Friends I loved with all my heart and am downright lost without.”
His throat constricted, his Adam’s apple bobbing. “That’s not possible. They closed the portals so long ago, and you can’t be more than—”
“Twenty. I’m twenty years old. My father found a way through a portal when I was four. Probably to escape the curse ofyou.”
He sneered.
“I’ve lived as a human for the past 16 years, thank you very much. Honestly, I only learned I was fae a week ago. Didn’t know anything about the curse until then either.”
He narrowed brown eyes at me. “If you speak true, then why in hell would you have returned? You were saferthere.”
I flinched, the carnage of my father’s death flashing back to me. “Isn’t it obvious? Other harbingers found us. They got through the portal. And—” I choked back tears.
Youwon’tcry right now! Not in front of the harbinger!
I shook myself, cleared my throat. “Anyway, once they’d found us, no place was safe. Daddy thought I’d be better off surrounded by my own kind. Before he—” I couldn’t say it. “He told me to find our old home.”
From my captor’s softening expression, I realized I was much better at altering the truth than I was at outright fibbing.
“And the fella you were traveling with?”
I huffed a deep breath. “I guess I’m supposed to marry him.” I paused, still ambivalent about that. “He was guiding me home—since I know nothing about this place.”
Pete exhaled, crooking his thumb in his belt beside his dagger. “For now, we’ll say I believe you, although it’s not on account of your woeful tale.” His gaze sharpened. “It’s because you’re so peculiar, and because your accent last night was so wonky. You sound more natural this morning.”
“Whatever,” I grumbled. “Just stop thinking of me as some heartless racist.”
He tilted his head, considering me. “Baffling, that you should care what I think of you—the man charged with delivering you to the Shadow Prince’s doorstep.”
I stared at him, relief washing over me. Intense trepidation followed. “Wait. I thought you were supposed to kill me. Isn’t that the point of a blood curse?”
“Oh, eventually the blood curse will take your life.” His matter-of-factness clenched my guts. “But that’s not what my orders are. I’m to capture and deliver a Danann beyn with a particular scent to Gentian—the scent of morning dew and pears.”
“I don’t smell like that.” Wouldn’t my own superior nose have seized on those notes long ago if I did?
“Aye, you do.” His nostrils flared. “I have uncommonly keen smell. The fragrance is in your blood, darlin’.”
“Don’t call me that.”
“Even had my power failed to convince me—which it didn’t—my snuff hound confirmed last night that you’re my mark. Aye, right now she’s fair aquiver behind a wagon wheel, I know.” Sionna peered through the spokes in said wheel, her ears back, her head down. “She scares easy, but her nose is never wrong. So, rest assured, you’re the lucky one Gentian’s after.”
