Page 93 of A Sanctuary from Shadow
I wished for the wings Pete had feared I might sprout.
Tacker exhaled heavily. “We’ll talk about it, Fletch. You’re trying to prove your self-restraint, remember. Balor should get the first pick of spoils.”
My stomach clenched. “OrIcould just keep them.” I inched along the wall toward the deeper caverns. If I could just get past Scully—
God, what I wouldn’t give for pitch blackness right now.
“You know, since they’re already mine and all.” I gulped so hard it hurt.
Fletch’s wild eyes widened further, his jaw dropping. “Oh, she speaks queerly too! Might I also have her tongue?”
I smacked his hand when his frigid, dry fingers touched my mouth.
He jumped back, rubbed his smarting hand, and eyed me like a pet who’d bitten him.
“High-handed Danann bitch!” Scully backhanded me. “You’ve just struck the crown lord of the Fomorians!”
Lightning splintered along my jaw as I floundered to the unforgiving stone at Tacker’s massive feet. He knelt, smirking, as I struggled to my hands and knees. Iron welled in my mouth, as I’d bitten the tongue Fletch wanted to poach from me.
“I’m sorry.” I wasn’t, and I glared. “I didn’t know who he was. Regardless, I have a right to my personal space.”
“Do you now?” Tacker asked. “Who gave you such a right? Your pathetic king?”
I spat, blood and saliva pooling by my dirty fingertips. If I’d had the strength, I would’ve ripped out his fangs for calling Daddy pathetic. “Danu—she gives all her children the right to themselves.” I rose on my knees to eye him. “Even you.”
“I’d say Scully hit you harder than it looked if you think we’re Danu’s progeny,” Tacker said. “We Fomorians are her sister, Domnu’s, children. A much fiercer goddess, who endowed us with the right to take what we want—if we’re mighty enough to subdue it.”
I knew he meant me and shivered.
“You said you were Fomorians?” I recalled Uncle Neel’s teachings on their civilization. Though I’d originally thought them religious parables, I guessed the stories I’d heard of their cruelty and warmongering were based in fae fact. “I’ve heard about you.”
Tacker tilted his head, scrutinizing me like produce at Giant Eagle. “I presume that means you’re frightened?”
You think?Tacker’s weapons were way too close to me, Scully had just cracked me across the face, and Fletch—their future leader—was completely off his rocker. I had no reason not to be frightened.
Still, I kept my shit together. Panic would do me no favors. “Should I be?”
Tacker’s lips hitched. “I’d think any lone, defenseless Danann beyn who finds herself trapped in a cave with three strange feyrs of any race should feel frightened. But with Fomorians—”
Keep calm. Keep calm.
I wobbled back to my feet. Tacker rose too, towering over me.
“Look, I know all those awful stories I was told about your people can’t be true.” I rubbed my throbbing jaw—damn sure to bruise. “I’m certain not every Fomorian in that war was to blame for the thousands of rumored hate crimes.”Against beyns—and faelets, I reminded myself. “Which must be an exaggeration. I’ve never thought it okay to judge a whole race of people by the actions of a few. So why should I assume right off the bat that you three gentlefeyrs would hurt me?”
Besides the fact that the crazy one wants to put your eyes in a mason jar on his bedroom bookshelf?
Surprisingly, it was the crazy one who expressed shame at my artifice. The other two—they remained stone.
“Have you not considered the general hatred we Fomorians must feel for your kind?” Tacker replied. “Your war bitch, Morrigan, swindled us out of our homeland, forced us onto an island.”
My fingers fisted at the insult against that famous goddess. Her parables had always been my favorite. “Sorry, I was told your leader retreated there—to escape capture and execution. Maybe I heard wrong. Even so, that doesn’t mean you should have a beef with me.”
Tacker’s brow arched at my word choice.
“I mean, I wasn’t even born yet. You can’t blame me for the faults of my ancestors.”
“Why not?” His slender nose flared. Sniffing me. “Their blood runs through your veins.”
