Page 155 of Primal Bonds

“No idea. There was an earth fada hanging around the court last year. Corban. But I don’t know if it’s the same guy—I never saw him as his animal. All I know is the wolf in the cage wears an earth fada’s quartz.”

She worried the bottle label with her thumbnail. “He’s black? What color are his eyes?”

“Hell, I don’t know. I only got a quick look at him. He’s in a tower that belongs to one of the king’s top advisors.”

Her fine brows drew together. “It must be him. Corban.”

“You know him?”

“Yeah,” she said flatly. “He’s my cousin. But in a cage?” She shook her head. “We thought he was working with the ice fae.”

“He was,” Fane confirmed. “But things have changed. The only fada in the court are caged or under a geas.”

A geas was an obligation or prohibition, binding to the person who accepted it. Breaking a geas was almost impossible, and if you did manage it, you’d lose what mattered to you most—wealth, your magic, even your life. But observe a geas, and you gained power, or money, or whatever you most wanted…but especially power.

And power was everything in the ice fae court—especially since Lady Blaer had come of age.

“I see.” Marjani rubbed her forehead. He saw with a pang that she had bruised shadows under her eyes, and he could swear she’d lost weight in the week since he’d last seen her. “This…changes things.”

“Leave.” He leveled a hard look at her. “I’m telling you again—get the hell out of Iceland. You can’t save your friend.”

“Friend?” The corner of her mouth quirked. “You think I’m here to save that asshole?”

“Then why are you here?”

Her gaze slid from his.

“Tell me.” He set his bottle on the small table between them with a snap. “I stuck my bloody neck out for you. You owe me the truth.”

“Fine.” She leaned forward, cougar-blue mixing with the brown in her irises. “I’m here to slit his throat.”

“Ah.” He fingered his chin, his mind rearranging things. Part of him was fiercely glad that the wolf wasn’t her lover—or worse, her mate. The other part considered why she’d come so far to kill the other fada, risking her own life in the process—and he didn’t like what he came up with. He had the bad feeling the black wolf had been one of the men who’d attacked her.

Rage curled through him. He ruthlessly suppressed it. Not your fight, Fane.

“Then you’ll leave,” he said. “The wolf will be dead soon, anyway. For a while he fought to get out, battering himself against the cage until he was bloody. But now he just sits on the floor, staring at nothing.”

“I don’t know.” Marjani watched as the fae lights changed from gold to green, the colors swirling lazily around each other before the gold faded away. “I guess if he’s almost dead, there’s no reason for me to stay. You’re sure?”

“Yeah. But you can’t leave now—the goblins’ blood is up tonight. No one but the most powerful fae will go outside until morning. You can stay here, and I’ll sneak you out at dusk tomorrow.”

Her catlike eyes narrowed. “Why are you helping me?”

He gave her a truth. “In the human world, I’m known as Fane Morningstar.”

Her jaw dropped. “You’re Evie’s dad?”

“I am.”

“So you knew who I was all along?”

He nodded. “Lord Adric’s sister. I was at Evie and Jace’s mating ritual.”

“The hell you were. We would’ve seen you.”

He spread his hands. “I’m a wayfarer, remember? No one sees me if I don’t want them to. Only Evie and her mate knew I was there.”

“But we would’ve smelled you. That silver in your scent—it marks you as fae.”

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