Page 65 of A Fate of Ice and Lies
Surprised, I jerked my attention to Teddy, who studied me with open curiosity. That openness made me want to lay myself bare for her.
“Will you allow us to hold each other accountable?” Donnie asked.
“I’d prefer it.” I bit the inside of my cheek.
“No,”Nalari snarled. From above, her thunderous roar made the walls of Teddy’s cottage tremble.
Teddy and Donnie stared at the shaking ceiling, their faces pale and bodies rigid.
“Nalari,”I pleaded.
“While I trust your mate and possibly her friends, the rest of her people would destroy you if they had the chance.”
“Of course they would,”I countered.“I don’t blame them.”
“Ask your mate what happened last night,”Nalari ordered.“Why her friends stayed the night, and why she slept facing the door with a rifle in her hand.”
“What’s a rifle?”
Another roar.
“What’s a rifle?” I asked Teddy.
She pointed toward the metal stick I’d seen her sleeping with that now leaned against the wall behind her.
“It’s a weapon,” she answered. “Like a gun but can do more damage. It shoots bullets and can kill.” She glanced up again when Nalari’s roar thundered through the house. “We weren’t going to use it on you or anything.”
The worry in her voice made me want to reach for her. Instead, I stood with Donnie following me. I reached for the rifle, but he grabbed it first. His face mirrored Teddy’s, so I took a reassuring step away from the weapon, wanting to ease whatever troubled them.
“I wasn’t going to use it.” I pushed a hand through my hair, my back protesting at the movement.
“Does Nalari think we were going to use it on you?” Teddy asked, pointing at the rifle Donnie held in his hand.
“No,” I rushed out. “She told me you slept with a rifle. I didn’t know what that was, and when she didn’t tell me, I asked you. I was just curious about it.”
Donnie went to the other side of the small kitchen, where he punched buttons that beeped on a large cabinet. When it opened, he put the rifle in before closing the metal door. I took a seat next to Teddy, turning my mug that was now empty.
“You want to learn about guns, I’ll teach you,” Donnie said, turning back to us as he sat back on his chair. “Until then, you can’t mess with it.”
It seemed very different from the weapons we used inNiev. Not as threatening as a sword, and I couldn’t imagine how it’d shoot anything more lethal than an arrow. But I respected Donnie enough to agree.
“Why’s your dragon so angry?” Ryenne asked, rubbing her eyes as she yawned and walked into the kitchen.
Her lover, Nate, kept his hand on her waist and only let go to kiss her temple. Without greeting us, he headed for the coffee and poured himself a cup. I wasn’t sure how he did it, but he drank deeply, not bothered by the burning liquid.
“Why did you need a weapon last night?” I asked Teddy.
Shifting uncomfortably, she nibbled her bottom lip. “Elias, I ...”
“Some people from town heard you were here without any other fae,” Ryenne said, her tone matter-of-fact. “We all saw how weak you were last night, and they thought they could. . .” She stopped, suddenly unable to look at me.
“They wanted to kill me?” I asked.
I suppressed the anger that rose inside me, pushing down my primal instincts that flared.
Teddy scooted her chair closer to me and twined her fingers with mine. “We wouldn’t have let them hurt you,” she promised.
“That’s why you all stayed?” I questioned. “Why you slept with a weapon?”
