Page 66 of The Princes of Stone and Steel

I walked over to climb on the bed and he immediately grabbed my hips to pull me down next to him, rolling to partially lie on top of me. His bent knee kept him from crushing me.

“How are you feeling about tomorrow?” he asked as he combed his fingers through my hair.

We were here, in this glorious castle, on the softest bed ever created and he asked me that? Now? Weren’t there better subjects to broach? But he asked it, which meant it was on his mind. I answered honestly.

“Tomorrow?” I sighed, pushing the hair behind my ear that had fallen in my face. “I’m so nervous, I don’t even want to think about it.” That wasn’t an exaggeration. I literally had to blink back the tears forming in my eyes and turned my head away so he couldn’t see me cry.

He gripped my chin to gently turn it back. “You can’t avoid it,” he said softly right before he gently placed his lips to my temple.

“What if I can’t save everybody?”

“There are casualties in war, Mils.”

“I know and that’s disturbing enough, but I’m not willing to lose anyone I care about.”

“We’ve come too far to be separated now. I have your back, my love. I always have your back.”

Steele brushed his lips along my jaw to finally rest on mine in another sweet declaration of love and then he rolled us, pulling the covers down from underneath us and flipping them over top. I refused to think about tomorrow, instead concentrating on tonight and the way he felt tucked up against my back. I breathed in the persimmon and wintergreen that always seemed to be a part of him now.

Save Steele. Save the outliers.

What if I couldn’t save them both?

Twenty-four

The battle for Roshambo

I’D SAY WE WOKE EARLY, BUT IN REALITY, NEITHER of us slept more than a few hours at a time. So by the time we decided to rise, we’d simply reached the end of one of those sleeping blocks of time.

During the night, the fae had lain out clothing for us. I heard them drawing a bath for me in the connected washroom. Along with the pumped-in water, they filled the tub with fragrant oils and several flowers floated on the surface. These fae treated me like a princess. If they kept it up, they’d start to spoil me.

Two sprites tugged the nightgown from the shoulders, lifting it over my head, while a third pushed me over closer to the bathtub. I could take a hint and stepped in. The moment I sat they pushed my head under water. I only had a second to gulp a lungful of air before being completely submerged. When I popped up, two dryads gooped my hair with something thick and sticky, but it smelled like flowers and lathered as they scrubbed. Once I rinsed all the goop from my hair, I popped back up a second time and the fairies tried to wash my body. I drew the line there and shooed them out.

Today wasn’t the day to sit and soak. I got in fast and got out faster. They’d left a long-sleeved tunic made of satin the same color as the nightgown and embroidered with all the exotic plants of the outliers. The tunic fell to my knees. Under the tunic they’d left me a pair of leggings, fabric undetermined, with enough stretch so as to not inhibit me when I fought. The footwear was like flat gladiator sandals made from some sort of tanned plant material. They felt sturdy yet comfortable.

I left the washroom with a towel wrapped tightly like a turban around my head. While more fae herded Steele into the washroom, they brushed and braided my hair, pinning it in an artfully messy side bun at the nape of my neck. Exactly like the one I’d done that night when I escaped my room to drive to Detroit with Korrigan for my birthday, the night I’d met Steeleagainfor the first time.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Steele’s loud voice boomed from the bathroom and I couldn’t help to throw my head back laughing.

The main room to the front of the castle held the squad of mud soldiers lined five across and five deep, exactly as the day I’d first met them, too. Tertius stepped forward. “The Slippies could not enter,” he said. “They await your orders outside.”

My orders? Did I have orders? Be careful. Oh, and don’t die. That sounded like a great order. But I couldn’t say that, now could I? They expected some great leader. You couldn’t get further from a great leader, but I was all they had at the moment. I was the flesh.

Steele, fresh from his bath, joined me, standing at my side. My right side. My right-hand man. “Did you enjoy your bath?” I asked, unable to keep the snicker from my voice.

“Well, if they planned to get that personal, we should’ve at least had dinner together first.”

Oh my god. I clapped my hands together, unable to hold back again while every one but Steele, who laughed quietly, stared at me like I’d lost my mind.

A second mud soldier stepped forward, clearing his throat. When I looked up, he said, “My name is Clarion.”

“Hello, Clarion,” I replied, and from the look on his face, totally throwing him off his game.

“Uh… hello, Millicent Merchant.”

“You can call me Millie.”

“Mils,” Steele admonished.

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