Page 46 of Tournament

He grunted. "Honestly? I thought we had some chance when we realized that there were moonsilver flowers here. But now…we've been delayed. We’ll be lucky if we make it back before the cutoff time for the challenge. And we'll likely need someone to come find us and rescue us from this maddening place, which may disqualify us all together. We were already behind in this tournament, thanks to all the times we've lost points. I think all chances of winning have fled. But I refuse to give up hope entirely. It's possible that the other teams were waylaid as well. Or, at least, those not involved in the obvious attempt to change the outcome of the game."

"And you want Mirri to be safe from his family," I whispered, recalling Raven team's true motivations in all of this. I might be a fun little distraction. But there was no way the band of friends would choose me over one of their members—over their true family. Of course not, silly Kat. Clearly, the moon had turned my brain to mush.

A masculine chuckle and a murmur of conversation preceded Mirri, Fife, and Adder as they returned from the woods. They all looked a little roughed up, but also more relaxed. And Fife only had one set of eyes.

I knew immediately what they'd been up to out there, my mind supplying all kinds of images of how they might have relieved their tension. But I didn't comment. All that mattered was that for the moment, everyone was more settled than they had been all night—well, except for Bach. But when the others returned, he stood, nodded at me, and headed for the little animal path Mirri and I had used earlier. "I'm going for a run," he bit out. Then he jogged off into the night.

I stared after him, not sure how to feel about any of this. "Is he going to be safe out there alone?" I asked tiredly. He had made me a little angry, and more than a little frustrated. But that didn't mean I wanted him to be eaten by a moon-crazed forest spirit.

Fife huffed out a laugh as he plopped down on the ground next to me. He was holding a flask that didn't look like the ones filled with water from earlier. "He'll be fine," the cleric assured me. "And if he gets lost, I'll just go find him again tomorrow. Let him murder a deer or something. It'll do the oaf some good."

I glanced at the beautiful male in surprise. "You don't sound too concerned."

He just smirked at me, took a drink from the flask, and passed it to me. "You won't be either, after a few sips of that."

I wrinkled my nose at him. His green eyes were brimming with mischief. "What is it, and where did you get it?"

He grinned. "We found the flask a little way away from camp—must have fallen off the horses when they fled and was overlooked earlier. It's cleric's brew. A little bit of brandy, with a few added herbs and a whole lot of added magic."

He winked, and I shook my head. "So, this is your answer to surviving this strange night? We simply grope each other over our clothes like adolescents and drink until we lose our minds?"

He shrugged in that graceful way of his. Even intoxication wasn’t enough to make him clumsy. "Do you have any better ideas?"

I sighed. "Plenty of them. But none of you assholes will participate." I lifted the flask and chugged, to the accompaniment of Fife's musical laughter.

Chapter 38

I woke disoriented and foggy, but with far less of a hangover than I thought I should have. I found myself sprawled on a patch of soft grass by the dwindling coals of the campfire, under a pile of highborn males.

Wriggling my arm out from under Fife's head, I rubbed my face, trying to sort out actual memory from dreams and wild imaginings.

I remembered dancing by the fire, singing, and drinking Fife's cursed cleric's brew. I remembered the thrill of the wild moon magic tingling through my blood and bones. I was pretty sure I had actually howled at some point, long, high, and bright. And I thought the others had joined in. The image of three highborn fae howling like wolves and yipping like coyotes was definitely burned into my brain, and it made me smile with remembered amusement. We had lost our minds. But I hadn't mourned the loss. It had felt so freeing. Everything else might seem foggy, but that sense of wild, uninhibited freedom remained, calling clearly to me from the recesses of my foggy brain.

Other images floated to the surface of my mind as well. It was these memories that I couldn't quite label as truth or dream. The feel of four distinct sets of lips on mine. The memory of hands skimming my body. Turning my head from kissing Mirri to see Adder slip his hand down Fife's breeches and stroke him…. I was fairly certain that they had all stuck to their plan to keep their dicks away from me. But I wasn't so sure they kept them away from each other.

Then again, I had been extremely drunk, and I honestly wouldn't be surprised if half of my current "memories" were actually dreams or wild imaginings brought on by lust, wild moon magic, and herb-laced alcohol.

I was pretty sure mushrooms were also involved at some point, and not the kind one usually cooked up for dinner. That was the last time I ever ate or drank anything Fife gave me from his stash of cleric goods!

Groaning softly, I tried my best to untangle my limbs and climb out from under the pile of slumbering fae males. But I wasn't surprised when I ended up waking them with my clumsy exit. Adder pushed the longer strands of his silver hair out of his face and gave me a clear-eyed look. Somehow, I wasn't at all surprised to learn that the sharp fae male was a brisk riser. He nodded to me, then stood and went to retrieve the flasks. Finding them empty, he grunted out "water," and stalked off into the woods in the direction of the stream.

Mirri rolled over and sat up. His fluffy auburn curls and sleepy smile were the sweetest thing I'd ever seen. He nudged Fife, but the cleric just grumbled and rolled onto his stomach without opening his eyes. He almost immediately started snoring softly into the grass, and I chuckled. Mirri shook his head and got up to poke around at the leftover food from yesterday.

Bach stood and extended a hand to me. I took him up on his offer and let him pull me to my feet. After we both headed off in different directions to relieve ourselves, I returned to the clearing to find myself alone with the leader of Raven team.

"There's nuts and berries here if you want them," he said, his deep voice still rough from sleep. "Mirri and Fife went to check on the moonsilver plants."

I took a seat next to him on the log by the burned-out fire. The magic of the moon still tingled through me, lurking in the back of my awareness, but it was far less prominent now, in the sun's light. More easily ignored.

Accepting the bowl of fruit and nuts, I frowned at Bach in concern. "I nearly forgot about the flowers in all the madness last night." But that wasn't quite right…I seemed to have a dim memory of dancing among the glowing white blossoms. "Wait…did we…visit the field?"

Fear slowly gathered in the pit of my stomach. If the five of us went out to the moonsilver field drunk and out of our minds with moon magic, it was quite possible that we had destroyed the flowers, destroyed Raven team's chance at winning this challenge, and destroyed the medicine that would help so many people.

Bach sighed. "Yes, we went out there. Someone just had to see them." But the small hint of a smile playing about his lips told me he wasn't really mad about my incessant curiosity.

I shook my head and popped some berries into my mouth. "I hope we didn't trample them all."

He shrugged. "We'll see what Mirri and Fife have to say, and we'll salvage what we can. If nothing else, we can relay the location to the king and queen, so they can harvest them in the future."

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