Page 62 of Dark Fire Kiss

I’d believed things were different with Bram and Fergus. That they wanted me for me. That they didn’t care about my too-short fangs or my inability to channel or my pitiful fighting skills. And maybe they didn’t.

But that didn’t mean they had the right to restrict my movements—even if they claimed they did it to keep me safe.

I reached the loch, which was a lot bigger than it looked from the castle. The water stretched so far I couldn’t see the other side. But I knew it was there—and probably closer than it seemed. The promise of endless water was an illusion. Everything had its limits.

Had Bram given me a loch and told me it was an ocean?

I looked down at the hand he’d healed the night he and Fergus took me to dinner. The skin was so perfect, it was hard to believe it had ever been scarred. But as Bram himself had said, the scars underneath were much more difficult to heal.

“You’re so weak.”

Part of me—a bigger part than I was comfortable admitting—wanted to shrug it off as no big deal. Who wouldn’t want two big, strong men looking out for them? But there was a difference between protecting me and trampling my independence. Bram had spoken in anger, when he was unguarded and more likely to blurt his true feelings. And he’d seemed perfectly serious when he threatened to lock me in a tower at the mere suggestion of me returning to Krovnosta. He was over three hundred years old. There was a very real chance he considered imprisonment an acceptable way to end an argument.

My throat went dry. Bram and Fergus and I were mated. There was no reversing our bond. But if they viewed me as a possession instead of a partner, no amount of mind-blowing sex could salvage our relationship.

And that raised another question—and one I definitely didn’t want to answer.

Had I escaped one prison just to walk into the arms of another?

Chapter Twenty

BRAM

“Can you see her?” Fergus asked for the hundredth time. Maybe the thousandth. I hadn’t kept track. I’d been too busy kicking my own ass for screwing everything up with Halina.

“Aye,” I said without turning from the window. She’d been outside for an hour now, just standing at the edge of the loch. When it appeared she had no plans to wander off, I’d persuaded Fergus to ditch his bed sheet and put some clothes on. He’d been reluctant, but he’d finally complied—setting a record for the fastest shower ever recorded.

He came to my side now pulling on a shirt and smelling like my shampoo. “Is she still by the loch?” He stared outside, and his tone turned anxious. “You don’t think she’ll go in, do you?”

I looked at him. “What, to drown herself?”

“No, to practice her backstroke. Aye, to drown herself.”

“You’re being dramatic. She’s immortal. A lack of oxygen won’t kill her.” As soon as I said it, though, worry crept into my mind. I wasn’t actually sure I was right. She was half human. Maybe dhampirs could perish that way.

Fergus’s disapproval was like a weight pressing against my skin.

I sighed. “Go on and say it.”

He was quiet—and that was how I knew he was truly angry. Fergus never yelled. He just shut down, switching off the energy that flowed around him. I would have rather he shouted. Or even hauled off and punched me. His silence was more devastating than any blow.

I faced him. He’d folded his arms, and his blond hair was darker because it was wet. “Fergus.”

He kept his gaze on Halina. “I’m not being dramatic,” he said quietly.

“Halina isn’t suicidal.”

“She’s been abused her whole life.” He looked at me. “I don’t ken what she’ll do, but I’m sure as hell not going to be flippant about it. Every part of me wants to go down there and get her but I can’t. That would make me as bad as you.”

Anger flared in my gut. “Are you serious? You heard her. She was talking about going to Krovnosta.”

“I heard her ask if she should go. It was a knee-jerk reaction to learning her father might be dead.”

I clenched my jaw. He was right. Probably. “I’ll apologize when she comes inside.”

“And what if she never does?”

I opened my mouth, ready to dismiss the idea for the absurdity it was. But he was serious, his gaze meeting mine head on. There was a challenge in the silver, and it wasn’t subtle at all.

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