Page 135 of A Dance With Fire
Their deaths would weigh heavily on her, and Shula couldn’t live with that on top of everything else.
No.
Sometimes, when the lives of friends were on the line, it was better to just be alone.
45
An Unwanted Mate
“The darkness is a friend, but it’s also a foe, Shula.”Her Papa’s voice echoed with every step she took against the cold earth. As quiet as she tried to be, winter was approaching, which meant dry earth and crinkling leaves.
“It blankets us when we don’t want to be seen, but it tricks us into thinking we are safe.”
She should have heeded those words more than she had. It would have made her more cautious. It would have pulled her out of her own mind, her own tumultuous thoughts, and the severity of what she was doing, what she planned on doing.
Maybe then she would have heard the footsteps before the body stepped out from behind a tree.
But she’d been too wrapped up in her own fear, in the clawing way it choked through her lungs like the smoke had all those years ago. When she’d burned and burned and her parents had paid for what she was and what she did.
Everyone seemed to die around her. Mama, Papa, the sweet little old human woman whose name Shula never learned. And because of what she was, they would keep dying while she lived to watch them die or to be the weapon that would kill them.
It was a pattern in her life. Trouble followed where she went. Safety in numbers and in plain sight was an illusion.
Too bad it had taken so long for her to realize it.
Her feet skidded against the ground as the figure stepped before her. Far away, and yet the way his scarred hands scraped over her skin was imprinted on her body. She had his heat memorized and so she felt it like he was in front of her.
One white eye seemed to glow beneath the smallest sliver of moonlight as Ryker took her in.
She could read the disappointment, resentment, and anger from where she stood.
“Ryker…” Her voice sounded harsh in the quiet of the night.
“I knew you were lying the moment you opened your mouth,” he cut in. “You’re a fuckingliarand a traitor to boot.”
They shouldn’t have, but his words cut. She should have been used to them; he’d said them often enough before. But that had beenbefore.Things were different now. She was different. They were. Maybe it was the imprint of his mouth on hers, the scrape of his beard against her skin.
That alone made his words tear through her heart.
“Please understand—”
He snarled, cutting her off. Quiet followed where they simply stared at one another, waiting with bated breath. For what, Shula didn’t know, but they waited.
Ryker broke the silence first. “You asked me who Mairin was.”
Shula’s heart beat faster.
She’d wondered, conjured up ideas of a lover and it twisted at her insides.
“Mairin Valda,” he whispered the words like a prayer, filled with an eternity of sadness that should have been impossible. He took in a breath. “She was my sister.”
Her mouth dropped. Sister. The reverent way he said it split her heart.Was.Because she was gone. Dead, because what else could she be in this fucking world of chaos and unrest? And the agony in his eyes said it all.
Ryker’s sister was dead.
“Tensions were high between the humans and the Fae. The war had just reached its peak, laws of segregation were being passed, humans were invading Tir na Faie, and Mairin…” He broke off, swallowed his emotions. “Mairin fell in love with a human. A fucking soldier. She’d mated with a fucking human soldier.”
“But how—”
