Page 139 of Lifebound

I leaned my head to the side to look at him. “And?”

“And Lyall saw me sharpening a piece of stick atop a cave. Asked me what I was doing, and I told him I was building a trap for wild rabbits that ran around on the other side near the border with Neutral Lands. He found it fascinating that I’d built traps like that with nothing but dead pieces of wood and rocks, and he insisted I come back to the Seelie Court to teach him how.”

My eyes closed and those tears threatened to spill out of me again. Suddenly I wanted to get to the princeright this momentand hug the shit out of him. Thank him with all my heart for this.

“The Queen refused at first. When a fae gets banished, he’s…well, not seen as equal anymore, but as less. Much less.”

This, I couldn’t even imagine. Who could ever think of Rune asless?

No wonder he thought he was nothing if that’s what he had been taught since he was six years old.

My God, people—and apparently fae, too—were really heartless.

“But Lyall insisted. Said he would stay with me right there if he couldn’t take me back, and the Queen has always had a soft spot for her only son. She eventually agreed, so I came back with them. I’ve remained in the Seelie Court ever since.”

Slowly, I let go of the railing and I touched his soft cheek, looked into his eyes. I leaned in and kissed him gently, tried to tell him what I couldn’t with words.

“I am so glad Lyall was born,” I ended up whispering—not because ofme, but because of him.

Rune chuckled, warming me all the way to my toes.

Just like that, I was smiling.

“Me, too,” he said, giving me another kiss. “He’s a ruthless bastard when he wants to be, and the years have changed him, but I believe there’s good in him. I believe he’s a good man.”

“Then I believe it, too,” I said without hesitation. “You’re ruthless, too, though.”

“I am?”

“Well, yes. The way you killed those incubi was pretty ruthless,” I muttered because I hadn’t forgotten, even if I hadn’t really let myself think about it at all.

“I did,” Rune said, and there was no remorse anywhere on him, no hint of regret.

“Why? You didn’t have to, Rune. You could have just locked them up.” Instead, he’d torn them to pieces while keeping me shielded from all of it with his shadows.

“I could have, but I heard them speaking when you were in the bathroom. One of them was hoping I’d leave you in the cage so he could come down when I went to talk to Lorei.” His thumb trailed my bottom lip. “He wasn’t going to live, Wildcat. None of them were.”

My eyes closed and I tried to feel something, tried to be mad, or to stick to the belief that it had been wrong, but…

Then I imagined, just for a split second, that hehadgone back upstairs, that those three incubihadcome down to the cage. Nobody would have heard me screaming. I’d have probably done whatever they wanted me to do under the influence of their magic. I wouldn’t have stood a chance.

So, in the end, I couldn’t stay mad at all. “I wish you didn’t have to get your hands dirty at all,” I whispered.

“It’s not the first time I’ve killed, and it won’t be the last,” Rune said, making my heart jump again.

“Who? Who have you killed before?”

“People who deserved it,” he calmly said. “I hate bullies, too. The fae Courts are infested with them.”

“Fuck, Rune,” I said, at a loss for better words.

“In Verenthia, it’s kill or be killed, Wildcat. And I’m not planning to die yet,” he said.

I closed my eyes and sighed deeply.

“Does that bother you?”

Did it?

---