Road To Winter (Fae's Captive #2)(5)

“I’m not leaving.” Leander holds his blade to her throat.

“Your threats are wasted on Selene, winter king.” She winks. “Drained. Your magic only whispers to me now, and it dances away from you and back to the otherworld. And oh, how it pesters! The otherworld calls and calls and calls you.” She presses her hands to her ears. “Always pulling at me, too. Wanting to show me even more than I already know. But I know too much as it is.” She cackles, the sound painful. “So you can go. And I will grant my boon.”

Leander—still wounded and clearly exhausted—is ready to fight to keep me safe. Endearing? Yes. Unnecessary? Also, yes.

“I’m not leaving, black one,” he growls.

“Leander.” I put a hand on his forearm. “Please. We have an arrangement, right, Selene?”

“We do.” She picks at her nails and scrapes one clean on her teeth.

I refuse to think that she just ate a piece of the skin she scratched off Leander. Nope. Not thinking it.

“I’ll be fine.” I pat Leander’s arm again, though he doesn’t lower his sword.

“She’s dangerous.”

“I am.” Selene grins and flicks another bit of carnage from her nails into her mouth. “But not to you, young one. And I gave my word.” She cuts her gaze to Leander. “You know what that means.”

“Give her a chance.” I don’t know what I’m doing, but I do know that if I don’t calm this situation, the battle will start all over again, and from the looks of Leander, he might not make it out alive.

He finally lowers his blade, and I let out a deep breath.

“Only because you wish it, little one, I’ll go. But I’ll be close. So close that one wrong move will be disastrous for you, witch.” He gives her a hard look, one that would probably make me pee myself if it were aimed at me. But it isn’t. I don’t fear him, and after that kiss—that kiss, my insides tremble—I feel so many things toward him that I can’t even decide on one.

He leans down and whispers in my ear. “I know what you are thinking about, little one. And I intend to discuss it more very, very soon.”

When he says “discuss,” I get a mental flash of the two of us beneath soft furs before a roaring fire as a winter wind howls outside. I clench my eyes shut for a second. Dear Horny Thoughts: Please go away. Xoxo, Taylor. I let out a huff of breath and force a smile. “All good here, Leander. Don’t worry.”

After giving Selene one more face-melting glare, he turns and strides back toward camp.

“Just us girls.” She twirls, her white hair flying out, and then we’re both back in the clearing—her leaning over her cauldron, me sitting on the log. At least this time I’m not bound by her magic.

She opens one hand and blows on it, as if she’s blowing a kiss, and the air shimmers faintly. My ears pop, and I get a slight sense of vertigo before everything returns to normal.

“That’ll keep your pesky mate from listening in.”

Darkness lingers, and the ground here has a faint layer of frost. I stare down at it. “Leander did all this?”

“He has the heart of the cold winter wind.” She produces a large wooden spoon from thin air and stirs her pot. “And to think, his power is dimmed here in the southern realm. He almost did Selene in. When he crosses the border into the winter realm.” She shivers. “He’ll be unstoppable. No wonder he took the throne. What a strong mate he will be.”

“He’s not my mate.”

She wrinkles her nose. “He is.”

“No—”

“Fate, young one. Fate. Can’t change it.” She huffs. “Many a time I’ve tried to change mine, but everything comes to pass as it’s meant to. Your mating was written long ago.” She cuts her gaze to me. “You feel the bond already.”

“I don’t feel a bond.” I shrug.

She stares at me, her black eyes glinting in the moonlight.

I squirm under her gaze. “I mean, I do feel something.”

“Lust.” She nods and returns to her cauldron, her stringy white hair hiding her face. “You feel lust for him.”

I press a hand to my reddening cheek. “I don’t know.”

“Don’t you? A fine warrior from the winter realm like that? Big and strong, broadest shoulders I’ve ever seen, face so handsome it must be a trick of the Spires.” She smacks her hard lips. “Back in my fae days, I would have ridden him until I had blisters on my thighs.”

“Wow, that’s TMI.” I press both hands to my cheeks.

“TMI?”

“Too much information.”

Her cackle rockets through the trees. “I used to think there was no such thing as too much information. But now, Selene knows too much. So much I wish I could get—out—of—here.” She punctuates each word with a smack to the side of her head, the sound of glass on glass. “But I can’t get rid of it, so I stay in my cave, hidden. No one tells me anything else. I sit in silence with my lovely bones.” She sighs, as if picturing her home. “It’s beautiful.”

I lace my fingers together as she stares off into the woods for a while, her hand slowly stirring whatever sizzles in the cauldron. It has a smell, but I can’t place it. One minute bitter, the next sweet, the scent keeps changing.