The courtyard reeked of ash and blood. The hunters’ charred remains smoldered in blackened heaps where the wards had sealed. Wolves padded through the wreckage, silent now, their muzzles streaked dark. The fae guard reset their lines with the grim efficiency of the living.
But Lou didn’t move.
He knelt in front of me, hands cupping my face, golden eyes wide with something I’d never seen in him before. Not fury. Not wrath. Fear.
“You could’ve died, Sugar.” His voice was ragged, smoke curling off his lips. “One wrong step—one breath—and they’d have had you. Don’t you ever throw yourself into a breach like that again.”
My throat ached. My body still hummed with the stone’s power, but my chest hurt worse at the sight of him shaking. The Dragon King, shaken.
“I didn’t think,” I whispered.
