Savage Beauty(31)

“I have no doubt in you, Luna.”

And I didn’t. If she could outrun a dragon, comfort a wolf while she removed his eye, and capture a ghost, the woman could do anything.

She smiled sadly. “You’d be the first.”

She was the dark witch. She’d invented her reputation to keep people away, but she did it to keep them safe from her, even though she wasn’t a danger to anyone but her sister.

She must be so lonely.

She was desperate to stop Aura, isolated from the world she once knew, and yet brave enough to face her fears. She knew her own demons well enough to keep them at bay. Luna was unapologetically who she was; darkness illuminated in pale light, kindness cloaked in snark, cold at times, but with a warmth bubbling beneath the frosted surface.

She was beautiful anger, an unabashedly wild thing living in the heart of the forest.

And while I ached for her because of her isolation, I was thankful for it at the same time. Because if anyone would take the time to peel back the layers of her, they would fall in love with her the same way I did. And where would that leave me in a long line of heart-crushed suitors?

I pinched my eyes closed.

She and I could never work. We were from two different worlds.

My father and mother needed me.

My Kingdom needed me.

She jogged down the steps and took up her broom. “Are you ready to fly?”

“Need you ask?” I teased.

But then my stomach sank. “What are we retrieving?”

“Another eye. This one from a blind person.”

I opened my mouth, unable to form words.

“Don’t look at me like that,” she said. “I don’t feel as guilty about this one. It’s not like the person will need it.”

Callous. She was absolutely callous at times.

She sat on her broom and I joined her. I shook my head, held her waist, and we took off into the sky.



LUNA

As the blind man slept deeply under my spell, I took his eye. It was like I told Phillip. He didn’t need it. His vision had already failed him, and now it would keep my sister blind to my approach.

At his side, I placed a pouch full of all the coin he would ever need if he used it wisely. I slipped into the shadows and found Phillip waiting in the darkness for me.

He raked a hand through his sandy hair. “Did you get it?”

“Yeah.”

He cringed a little. Inwardly, so did I, but I had to have the eye.

The sky was lightening overhead. We would be pushing our luck to go after another item. Best to save it for tomorrow.

“Where to next?” he asked.

“Home. Dawn will be here fast. We’ll retrieve the rest over the next few nights.”

“And then? What happens when you have all the ingredients? You cook everything up and go feed it to Aura?”

I wished it were that simple. And he wasn’t going to like what I had to do next. “I have to take the ingredients to Malex.”

Prince Phillip muttered a curse that would make a normal female blush.

He tore at his hair again. “You have to be kidding!”

Wincing, I shook my head. “I wish I were, but I need his help to make the spell.”

“Why do you need him?”

“Because he’s powerful.”

“He wants you,” he said.

I shook my head. “He wants something from me. He only pretends to want me.” That much had been clear from my visit to his cave. He watched my body, but didn’t ask for more than a couple of fairly chaste kisses. And those kisses weren’t romantic. He’d used them to gather information. Malex didn’t want me the way Phillip did. He wasn’t hungry for me in the same way.

Nor did I want him.

Kissing Phillip was a colossal mistake. Even if it was perfect, and even if I loved it. Even though it had been explosive in a way I didn’t expect, sending sparks from my scalp to my feet. The memory of Phillip erasing Malex’s mark from my skin was enough to send goosebumps over my body. However, the mere mention of Malex made Phillip cold.

The flight back to the cottage was silent. There were no warm whispers at my ear. His grip on my waist was tense and as harsh as the words he’d spewed when he found out that Malex had to help me.

If there were any other way, any other option, I would take it, but this was the only way I knew to take.

When we landed, Phillip wouldn’t look at me. He waited as I climbed off the broom and together, we walked to the cottage as the coming dawn began to paint a watercolor sky. “You said you’d tell me,” he said sternly.

A weight fell on my chest. I had promised, and I would tell him, but it would hurt. It would hurt me to relive it, but worse than that, it would hurt for him to imagine it. In the end, the truth might be the wedge that separated us.

Ember was waiting at the door. I sank onto the porch steps and waited until Ember came to me. I stroked her fur to thank her for keeping watch over the place, and to calm my nerves. Phillip settled beside me, arms braced on his knees.

“I want you to know this will be the most difficult thing you’ll ever hear, and I’m sorry.” I took a deep breath before continuing. “I’m sorry it happened, and equally as sorry that you have to hear it from me. But I’d rather it be me who tells you, than someone who will lie to you about the details. If you want this truth, I’ll give it to you, but I won’t be able to spin it into something lovely. There’s no other way to describe William’s death but tragic and brutal.”