Moira picked up the cross again. “And it’s a terrible price he paid for it. A terrible price he paid for defending a friend.”

With Hoyt’s help, Glenna got to her feet. “I’m sorry isn’t enough. I know what he meant to you.”

“You couldn’t possibly.”

“I think I do, and I know what he meant to the rest of us. I know he’s dead because of me. I’ll live with that all of my life.”

“So will I. And it’s my bad luck that I’ll live a great deal longer than you.”

He took the whiskey bottle when he walked out.

Chapter 16

In the moment between wake and sleep, there was candlelight, and the bliss of nothing. Easy warmth and sheets scented with lavender, and floating on the comfort of nothing.

But the moment passed, and Glenna remembered.

King was dead, hurled into the sea by monsters with the same carelessness of a boy tossing a pebble into a lake.

She’d gone upstairs alone, by her own request, to seek the solitude and oblivion of sleep.

Watching the candle flicker, she wondered if she would ever be able to sleep in the dark again. If she would ever be able to see night coming and not think their time was coming with it. To walk in the moonlight without fear? Would she ever know that simplicity again? Or would even a rainy day forever send chills down her spine?

She turned her head on the pillow. And she saw him silhouetted by the silver light that slid through the window that overlooked his herb garden. Keeping watch in the night, she thought, over her. Over them all. Whatever burdens they all bore, his were heavier. And still he’d come to stand between her and the dark.

“Hoyt.”

She sat up as he turned, and she held out her hands to him.

“I didn’t want to wake you.” He crossed to her, took her hands while studying her face in the dim light. “Are you in pain?”

“No. No, it’s gone under, at least for now. I have you and Moira to thank for that.”

“You helped yourself as much as we did. And sleep will help as well.”

“Don’t go. Please. Cian?”

“I don’t know.” He sent a troubled look toward the door. “Closed in his rooms with the whiskey.” Looking at her, he brushed back her hair, turning her face to take a closer study at the bruising. “We’re all using what we can tonight, so the pain goes under.”

“She would never have let him go. She would never have released King. No matter what we’d done.”

“No.” He eased down to sit on the side of the bed. “Cian must have known that somewhere inside him, but he had to try. We had to try.”

By pretending to be a bargaining chip, she thought, remembering Hoyt’s explanation of what they’d seen on the cliffs.

“Now we all know there can be no bargaining in this,” he continued. “Are you strong enough to hear what I have to say?”

“Yes.”

“We’ve lost one of us. One of the six we were told we needed to fight this battle, to win this war. I don’t know what it means.”

“Our warrior. Maybe it means we all have to become warriors. Better ones. I killed tonight, Hoyt—more from luck than skill—but I destroyed what had once been human. I can and will do it again. But with more skill. Every day with more skill. She took one of us, and she thinks it’ll make us weak and frightened. But she’s wrong. We’ll show her she’s wrong.”

“I’m to lead this battle. You have great skill in magicks. You’ll work in the tower on weapons, shields, spells. A protective circle to—”

“Whoa, wait.” She held up a hand. “Am I getting this? I’m consigned to the tower—what, like Rapunzel?”

“I don’t know this person.”

“Just another helpless female waiting to be rescued. I’ll work on the magicks, and I’ll work harder and longer. Just like I’ll train harder and longer. But what I won’t do is sit up in the tower day and night with my cauldron and crystals, writing spells while the rest of you fight.”

“You had your first battle today, and it nearly killed you.”

“And gave me a lot more respect for what we’re up against. I was called to this, just like the rest of us. I won’t hide from it.”

“Using your strengths isn’t hiding. I was given the charge of this army—”

“Well, let me slap some bars on you and call you Colonel.”

“Why are you so angry?”

“I don’t want you to protect me. I want you to value me.”

“Value you?” He shoved to his feet so the red shimmer from the fire washed over his face. “I value you almost more than I can bear. I’ve lost too much already. I’ve watched my brother, the one who shared the womb with me, taken. I’ve stood over the graves of my family. I won’t see you cut down by these things—you, the single light for me in all of this. I won’t risk your life again. I won’t stand over your grave.”

“But I can risk your life? I can stand over your grave?”

“I’m a man.”

He said it so simply, the way an adult might tell a child the sky is blue, that she couldn’t speak for ten full seconds. Then she plopped back against the pillows. “The only reason I’m not working on turning you into a braying jackass this very moment is I’m giving you some slack due to the fact you come from an unenlightened age.”

“Un... unenlightened?”

“Let me clue you in to mine, Merlin. Women are equals. We work, we go into combat, we vote, and above all, we make our own decisions regarding our own lives, our own bodies, our own minds. Men don’t rule here.”

“I’ve never known a world where men rule,” he muttered. “In physical strength, Glenna, you’re not equal.”

“We make up for it with other advantages.”

“However keen your minds, your wiles, your bodies are more fragile. They’re made to bear children.”

“You just gave me a contradiction in terms. If men were responsible for childbearing, the world would’ve ended a long time ago, with no help from a bunch of glory-seeking vampires. And let me point out one little fact. The one causing this whole mess is a female.”

“Somehow that should be my point.”