Chapter 44

Hanna

Kaelan ran his hand over Thorne’s throat, searching frantically for any sign of life. His hands were shaking.

Thorne didn’t move.

I couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe. There was a pit in my stomach, a deep, vast emptiness. The entire world seemed to be holding its breath with me.

Dare joined us then, striding over cockily at first. Then he saw Thorne, and he dropped to his knees at his side. His face was suddenly wild with grief, and it was like seeing Dare—the real Dare—as the mask of indifference he always wore crumpled to dust.

“Thorne.” Kaelan’s voice was full of command. “Wake up.”

He shook his friend’s shoulders. Then, more softly, almost pleading: “Please.”

Despite Thorne’s massive size, Kaelan gathered him into his arms easily, lifting him up. Kaelan’s hands were shaking as he looked around for help.

Dare rested his hands on Thorne, and relief rushed through me. Dare had healed me when I was half-torn apart by thorns; he would fix Thorne now.

I heard a sob and realized it had come from me. The world was a blur and I couldn’t feel anything. It was as if the intensity of the moment had overwhelmed my senses. But my body reacted even when my mind could not.

I’d never been great at healing. But my hands were on Thorne’s face, cupping the hard angles of his cheeks, my thumbs pressing against those angular cheekbones as I rested my forehead against his. A warm, magical glow rose from my hands and diffused under his skin, turning it golden and translucent.

It was all the magic I had.

And as soon as my hope rose, the magic sputtered and died.

I looked up at Dare frantically. He should be able to help.

Besides me, Dare cursed. “He’s so close to death… I can close the surface wounds, but I can’t… There’s so much damage.”

Despite what he said, he kept trying. Tears slid down my cheeks as I frantically tried to summon the rest of my magic to heal him.

“My brother has always had the worst taste in friends.”

I whirled in surprise to see Alys striding toward us. Ekardo, looking far more uncertain, picked his way behind her. He cast a look at Seraphine’s broken corpse, pausing to pass his hand over her at a distance. Black, sparkling magic followed his hand through the air before it dissipated into smoke.

“She’s really dead,” he said, relief in his voice.

“Alys, help him,” I begged. I didn’t know where she and Ekardo had come from, but Thorne had believed in the power of Alys’s magic. It had to save him now.

She swore when she saw Thorne’s face. “Put him down on the ground, Kaelan. You did this to him. You are the worst?—”

“Yes,” Kaelan said drily. “And I’m still the heir to the throne, worst or not, so shut your mouth and save him.”

That cold, hard mask had snapped over his features once again, but his hands were still trembling as he gripped Thorne. If he hadn’t cared so much… he would’ve let him go.

Alys tucked the yellow crystal she carried into her pocket. “Ekardo. Make yourself useful.”

Her tone was as brusque and rude as ever, but her gaze was soft and worried as she rested her hands lightly on her brother. Ekardo, for his part, was a flurry of activity, pulling a potion from inside his jacket and incanting briefly with his hands cupped around it. The bottle was suffused with the same warm glow of light that my magic had briefly managed, but even when he held it toward me, the glow remained.

“You can give it to him,” he said. “It should help.”

Alys was murmuring quietly as she focused her magic. Not an incantation. Just a plea for her brother to return. I shifted anxiously.

Dare put his hand on Kaelan’s shoulder, standing close to Thorne, waiting.

After a second, Dare put his arm around my waist, holding the four of us close together.

Then Thorne shifted.

His eyes blinked open. Through cracked lips, he murmured, “Took you long enough.”

I let out a shaky laugh. Dare’s arm tightened around my waist as if he was afraid my legs would buckle, and for the first time, I could feel his warmth, his arm curling around my waist.

“You’re alright,” I murmured, leaning forward to kiss Thorne’s cheek.

He turned his face and caught my mouth with his. It was the faintest brush of a kiss, but I savored the feel of his lips pressing mine.

Thorne was wounded, but he was alive, and he loved me.

“Let’s get him someplace safe to rest,” Dare said. “In case the monsters return.”

“They won’t,” Thorne managed. “With Seraphine dead, her ‘pets’ are free. The other monsters are… loose for now… but the Snake Queen will try to bring them back under her control.”

I looked out over the ruined lines of Thorne’s home city. There were no monsters in sight.

For now, we had peace with the Snake Queen.

But I was sure the woman who had threatened my family would return eventually to try to destroy us.

We left the ruins for the nearest allied castle, where Alys promised we would be safe. I greeted the friends of their family who owned the castle, but barely registered their names and faces. All I wanted was to be with Thorne, Kaelan and Dare.

They took us to a luxurious apartment, and Kaelan settled Thorne gently into the bed, then stood above him as if he were going to keep watch. Dare paced in front of the fire. Thorne should continue to heal in his sleep, but none of us could escape our restless tension until he woke.

Alys and Ekardo lingered by the door, as if they had their own business to attend to, but I had questions… because I knew Thorne would have questions when he woke.

“How did you get back here?” I asked Alys. “Is the rest of Thorne’s family safe? Your mother, Coril?”

“No thanks to you.” Alys’s eyes flashed, and I had the feeling I’d be waiting a long, long time to win over Thorne’s sister. “They went with all the others evacuated from Caer Far. We always thought one day the monsters might breech our defenses…”

But even if they had imagined it could happen, her eyes were still pained as she stared out at the vast damage.

“How did they get inside?”

“My father.” Kaelan’s deep voice startled us both. Alys and I were both jumpy at this point. “He must have lowered the magical defenses.”

Alys fixed him with a dark look. “When exactly are you going to take the throne, Kaelan?”

There was a hard edge to her voice.

His voice had the same edge as he promised, “Soon.”

“How did you and Ekardo end up here?” I asked, and also… “How did you and Ekardo end up together?”

She stiffened. “We aren’t together.”

“I mean together geographically,” I corrected, though Ekardo had frowned slightly at her vehemence.

“Thorne sent him to me with his crystal.” Alys produced it from her pocket. She glared at her brother, though he was deep asleep and so it was a wasted effort. “Leaving himself stranded.”

“Why?”

“To save you,” she told Kaelan. “He thought Ekardo could help. And if you’re going to ask why, I don’t know. I don’t know why Thorne loves you.” She swept her arm, encompassing Kaelan, myself, and possibly Dare. “But I know you should try to be worthy of that love. Because he would do anything for you three.”

“We will,” I said, but she looked distinctly unconvinced.

Once Alys and Ekardo had gone, Kaelan told me quietly, “Thorne sent me here. But I don’t want her to know. He thought she could help me.”

“She could have, if it weren’t for Edric.”

“Perhaps.”

I was on the verge of asking about Kaelan wresting the throne from Edric. But I couldn’t. Not yet. I was too tired.

All I wanted to do was lie down carefully beside Thorne, being sure not to hurt him, and so I did.

“I’m going to sleep here with him,” I said, stroking his arm. “He’s been alone so much lately. I want him to know I’m here when he wakes.”

“I’m not leaving you,” Kaelan said. “Someone has to watch over you both.”

“Have it your way.” He had been the one we were afraid of, but I didn’t want Kaelan to leave us either.

Dare paced in front of the fire until Kaelan gathered a blanket and collapsed into the chair. Dare glanced at us both as if he had something he wanted to say, but all he said in the end was, “Good night.”

“Good night,” I told Dare.

When he had left, I told Kaelan, “I think Dare had something he wanted to say.”

“Dare always has something to say.”

“You’re being obtuse on purpose,” I said.

“I’m not being obtuse.” Kaelan sprawled against the side of the chair, his long, muscular legs thrown over one arm. “I don’t have the energy for Dare right now, and I’d tell him that to his face.”

“Be nice to him,” I scolded. I pulled the blanket over Thorne’s shoulder, ran my hand down the hard muscle of his arm. This close, I could study every facet of his beautiful face in the shadows of the firelight.

Kaelan sat up and gave me an incredulous look. “When did you and Dare become best friends?”

“Jealous, Kaelan?” I propped myself up on my elbow so I could give him an incredulous look right back. “Because you almost murdered me for another woman.”

“Because I thought she was you. All my murderous impulses are yours.”

I let out a laugh. I couldn’t help it. “What a perverse declaration of love.”

“I have far more perverse ways of showing my love for you,” he promised.

I laid there, warm in the curve of his body, caught between the two men I loved so much. Softly, I told him, “Do you remember the night you rejected me?”

“Unfortunately.”

“You went with another woman. Do you remember that?”

He scoffed into my hair. “I pretended to go with another woman.”

I turned my face to study the hard angle of his jaw, the softness of his lush lips. “Really?”

“I’m an asshole who would hate you, Hanna. Not an asshole who could love anyone else.”

I fell asleep, in the warmth of the room, with Thorne’s soft breathing against my hair and the beat of his heart against mine, and the soft, comforting sounds of Kaelan shifting against the chair.

In the middle of the night, I woke up to find Kaelan sliding in behind me in the bed. His cool skin, covering his rock hard torso, pressed against my back, and I let out a groan of protest.

His hand settled on my hip. Into my ear, he murmured, “Shh. I’m here, I’m watching over you.”

Had I stirred with yet another nightmare?

Or was it his own nightmares that drew him into the bed behind me?

Whatever it was, I slept safely and securely between the two men I loved, all night long.