These Twisted Bonds (These Hollow Vows, #2)(48)

After Pretha leaves, I find my way back into the corridor and wait several minutes before stepping out of my shadows. I take a deep breath as I feel myself turning corporeal again, and then I join Finn on the terrace, my boots clicking against the stone floors with every step.

“I forget how beautiful the nights are in these lands,” he says before I have a chance to explain my presence or why I snuck through his wards—not that I have a good explanation.

I join him at the rail. “They are stunning. Better than home?”

A small, sad smile curls his lips. “No. Nothing’s better than home.”

“I bet you’re anxious to get back there.”

His eyes meet mine, and the wariness I see there is like a stone settling in my gut. “I’m anxious to be doing something that gets us closer to a solution. The palace itself . . .” He shakes his head. “Going home is always an emotional quagmire, one I’m never eager to rejoin.”

“Why’s that?”

Finn’s mouth twists unhappily. “It’s irrelevant. All that matters now are answers.”

“Answers about what?”

“About the children. About my people. About what we do now. We are a court in shambles.”

And that’s all my fault. I let the words sink into me, let them settle like stones in my gut. “You really think Mab will have a solution?”

He nods. “I think the Great Queen would go to untold lengths to protect her court, but especially to protect it from Seelie rule.”

“And you’d accept her solution if it involved letting someone else sit on the throne? Even after . .

. everything?”

He swallows. “Believe it or not, I want what’s best for my people more than what’s best for me.

Right now, what’s best is a kingdom that survives.” He shakes his head. “My life is less valuable than that of an entire court. If I didn’t know that, I should be ashamed to ever believe I could rule.”

“You must really despise me then,” I say softly.

Straightening, he turns to me slowly. “Not even a little, Princess.”

“You should. My life is no more valuable than yours, yet my beating heart is the reason your court is in shambles, as you say.”

“I don’t see it that way.” Lifting his face, he turns his attention back to the night sky, and the silence sits heavily between us. “Are you prepared to see him again?” he asks.

“I saw him once already.”

Finn arches a brow. “Let me guess—when you asked him to dismantle the camps?”

Nodding, I lean on the rail and watch a bat circle in the distance. “Does it ever get easier? Being connected to someone like this?”

He narrows his eyes, as if the answer is out there in the dark and he need only focus to see it.

“Does it feel difficult?”

I huff. “Always having to cut myself off from his emotions? The constant distraction of feeling what he’s feeling and the vigilance necessary to keep my shields up?” I sigh. “Difficult. Exhausting.

Yes.”

“Hmm.” He squeezes the back of his neck. “You’re shielding against your bonded partner?

Interesting.”

I glare at him so hard I can’t believe he doesn’t shrink from the force of it. “It’s not your business.”

“I don’t think it’s supposed to be a hardship. Ideally, it would be a comfort, but you two . . .”

“Were cursed from the start?”

He huffs out a laugh. “It’s complicated, I guess.” He looks down at his arms. The sleeves of his black tunic have been rolled to his elbows, exposing his strong forearms and the rune markings covering them. “Not that I’d really know.”

I study the tattoos on his arms and then the ones peeking out from his collar. Since I’ve seen him shirtless, I know there are many, many more where those came from, and each represents a unique bond. “Are any of them alive?” I ask. “Or were they all tributes from the time of the curse?”

He blows out a breath. “I never saw the point in bonding to my servants. And of course the moment I bonded with the tributes . . .”

“They died,” I finish.

He nods.

“And what about Isabel?”

He flinches. “She was the first human I killed.” His voice is so low I can barely hear the words.

“The first human whose life force I got to feel pumping through my veins.”

I want to be disgusted, but there’s something in his expression that only makes me feel sorry. “But you loved her?”

His eyes connect with mine. They’re haunted. “I did,” he says. “So don’t ever fool yourself into thinking love is enough, Princess. Maybe that’s true where you come from, but it couldn’t be further from the truth in this godsforsaken place.”

I open my mouth to argue, but I’m cut off when Kane rushes onto the terrace.

“Word has arrived from the Unseelie palace,” he says.

I squeeze my eyes shut, hating the interruption but feeling grateful for it at the same time. I wish my feelings for Finn weren’t so conflicted. I wish I could simply slot the shadow prince into the “enemy” category in my brain, the way I did with Mordeus, and move on, but no matter how much I try to convince myself he’s no better than his evil uncle, my heart refuses to believe it.