“Lass,” Helga whispered. “Avery, your men are dying.”
I gently laid Mr. Browning down, wiping my hand over my face, and realized it was shaking. I felt like my world was falling apart.
Everything was crashing in on me and I was going to suffocate from the weight. Like I was never going to get better—not until my men were standing next to me. I choked back a cry that threatened to spill out.
What was wrong with me? I never cried. Not uncontrollably, not since my mother had been killed. I’d faced nightmares in my quest for revenge. Yet the thought of these fae dying made me tremble.
“Do you care nothing for them, lass?” Helga asked and her words pierced me.
The problem was that I cared too much. More than I had a right to. But I was done hiding my feelings.
“Of course, I do. I-I love them.” It was too late for regrets.
She was right and because of me, both Darrius and Malcolm were the grey-white of death.
Weeks ago, I couldn’t imagine myself loving even one Fae, now I was in love with two of them.
There was nothing I wanted other than to see them open their eyes and give me some sarcastic comment about how I took so long to understand that I had fallen in love with them.
I glanced over to the third prince.
Simeon’s blood coated the floor beneath him. He must have sustained more injuries than I thought. Maybe even during his capture.
And yet, he hadn’t fought back when I attacked him. When he had every right to do so.
My gut clenched hard that I blinked back tears. I didn’t want this. I had just wanted to leave and go back to my life of hunting their kind.
But how could I when I’d met these Fae who had challenged my beliefs and taken my heart?
“Claim them, then.” Helga shook from her effort to heal them. “Finish the circle.”
She meant Simeon who looked so much like my mother’s killer that it was hard to breathe. I told myself over and over that it wasn’t him. I looked back at Darrius and Malcolm.
I had to do something. I couldn’t stand the thought of any of them dying. Not if I had the ability to heal them.
Never thought I’d even be considering helping a fae. “H-How do I claim them?”
“Love.”
“But I don’t know him.” I squeezed my eyes shut. Mrs. Browning had told me to seek out Simeon. To claim him. If I had done so, would that have turned the tide in our favor? Would my men be whole and healthy right now if I had listened?
I wrapped my arms around myself, trying to keep from flying apart. My back cramped up again and I groaned in pain.
“They die, then so do you.” Helga coughed, her skin losing color and making me wonder how much she’d given of her magic to try and keep them alive this long. “Hurry.”
“Please,” said a chorus of servants bleeding and bruised from the doorway. “The Gwyllion is letting in the nightmare Fae upon us. We’re going to die.”
One elderly woman stepped apart from the group, nodding her head as she shambled closer to me. “They will kill us all, then go into the human world. We are the last stronghold that kept most of them out.”
Maggie…and my other few friends. Even my boss who I hated. They didn’t deserve to die.
None of these fae should have to suffer either. And I’d been one who had brought them pain in the past. Who had hunted them down and lumped Seelie and Unseelie alike into one bad category.
They were individuals, like me, and deserved to live in peace. Deserved love and everything that entailed.
I had to figure out how to heal these men who had stolen my heart. Then we could fight back the Gwyllion and all those she brought with her. I wasn’t going to let her get away with hurting innocents.
The princes had to be healed. But how?
I’d felt the stirrings of love and my back hurting—or wings—if what Helga said were true, when I’d had sex with Darrius and then Malcolm. This wasn’t the time or the place to do the same with Simeon. Hopefully, a kiss, like in the fairytales, would be as good.
I rushed up to Simeon’s prone form.
My stomach did a little flip at seeing him that I wasn’t sure was only because of my past memory of his father and the horrible crime he committed. I pushed aside my haunted thoughts and bent over.
I brushed my lips across his.
“Not so fast, little pretend Fae.” The elderly woman who had shuffled up earlier now morphed into the Gwyllion.
“No.” I moved to cover Simeon, afraid that she would end him or one of the others’ lives right here and now.
She yanked me backward by my hair, away from Simeon before I could counter. She moved faster than a damn snake.
“I didn’t come all this way to watch you rip away my future…the future that should’ve been my sister, Amber’s. Now I will watch you all die in payment for her death.”