House of Flame and Shadow (Crescent City, #3)

Flynn and Dec, the bastards, didn’t show up to breakfast. Leaving Ruhn and Lidia to dine alone again.

Ruhn had lain awake most of the night, hard and aching—then fretting about what Bryce and the others were facing in the Cave of Princes. Maybe he should have gone with them. Maybe staying here had been cowardly, even if they did need information from the archives. Flynn and Dec could have found it.

The dining room doors opened as they were finishing their meal, and Ruhn braced himself for his asshole cousins. But a tall Fae male walked in, glancing about before quietly shutting the door behind him. As if he didn’t want to be seen.

“Lidia Cervos.” The male’s voice shook.

Ruhn reached a hand toward the knife in his boot as the male approached the table. Lidia watched him, expression unreadable. Ruhn tried and failed to control his thundering heart. He opened his mouth. To order the stranger to announce himself, to demand he leave—

“I came to thank you,” the male said, and reached for his pocket. Ruhn drew his knife, but the male only pulled out a piece of paper. A small portrait of a female and three young children. All Fae.

But Lidia didn’t look. Like she couldn’t bear to.

The male said, “Ten years ago, you saved my life.”

Ruhn didn’t know what to do with his body. Lidia just stared at the floor.

The male went on, “My unit was up in the base at Kelun. It was the middle of the night when you burst in, and I thought we were all dead. But you told us that the Hammer was coming—that we had to run. All seven of us are alive today, with our families, because of you.”

Lidia nodded, but it seemed like a thank you, please stop motion. Not from any humility or embarrassment—it was pain on her lowered face. Like she couldn’t endure listening.

He extended the portrait of his family again.

“I thought you might like to see what your choice that night achieved.”

Still, Lidia didn’t look up. Ruhn couldn’t move. Couldn’t get a breath down.

The male went on, “There are a few of us from my unit still here, in secret. Prince Cormac convinced us all to join the cause. But we never told him, or anyone, who saved us. We didn’t want to jeopardize whatever you were doing. But when we heard through the rumor mill that you—the Hind, I mean—had defied the Asteri, some of us contacted each other again.”

The male at last noticed Lidia’s discomfort and said, “Perhaps it is too soon for you to acknowledge all you have done, the lives you saved, but … I wanted to tell you that we are grateful. We owe you a debt.”

“There is no debt,” Lidia said, finally meeting the male’s eyes. “You should go.”

Ruhn blinked at the dismissal, but Lidia clarified to the stranger, “I assume you have kept your activities and associations secret from Morven. Don’t risk his wrath now.”

The male nodded, understanding. “Thank you,” he said again, and was gone.

In the silence that followed, Ruhn asked, “You let them see who you really were?”

“It was either risk my identity being revealed to the world, or let them die,” Lidia said quietly as they headed for the door. “I couldn’t have lived with myself if I’d chosen the latter.”

Ruhn arched a brow. “Not to sound totally callous, but why? There were only seven of them. It wouldn’t have made a difference in the rebellion.”

“Maybe not for Ophion as a whole, but it would have made a difference for their families.” She didn’t look at him. “Partners, children, parents—all hoping for their safe return.”

“There had to be more to it than that,” he pushed. “There was way more than that on the line for you.”

She opened the door, and didn’t speak again until they’d stepped into the hallway. “I guess I hoped that … that if my sons were ever in a similar situation, someone would do the same for them.”

His heart twisted at the words, her truth. “Your path was difficult, Lidia—Hel, I don’t think I could have endured any of it. But what you did was incredible. Don’t lose sight of that.”

“I could have saved more,” she said softly, eyes on the floor as they strode down the empty hall. “I should have saved more.”



* * *



Lidia had no idea what to make of the encounter with the former rebel this morning.

Maybe Urd had sent him to her, to remind her that her choices and sacrifices had, in fact, made some difference in the world. Even if they had gutted her.

The Ocean Queen hadn’t given her a choice in leaving the ship, both all those years ago and now. But here, on this cheerless Fae island … here, at least, were some people who’d benefitted from that impossible position.

Flynn and Declan hadn’t yet arrived in the archives, and as the silence became unbearable while she and Ruhn started their search, the only scents the musty catalog cards and Ruhn’s inviting, reassuring smell, Lidia found herself calling down the line of the card catalog, “I’m going to go hunt for some coffee. Want to join me?”

Ruhn looked over, and gods, he was handsome. She’d never really let herself think about the sheer beauty of him. Even with his tattoos in ribbons, proof of what Pollux had done—

His blue eyes flickered, as if noting the direction of her thoughts. “Sure, let’s go.”

Even the way he spoke, the timbre of his voice … she could luxuriate in that all day. And when he’d touched her last night, licked her—

Did he have any idea how close she’d come to begging him to strip her naked, to lick her from head to toe and spend a long while between her legs?

“What’s that look about?” Ruhn asked, voice low, thick. She noted every shifting muscle in his shoulders, his arms, his powerful thighs as he walked toward her. The way the sunlight gleamed on his long dark hair, turning it into a silken cascade of night. That buzzed side of his head seemed to be begging for her fingers to slide over the velvet-soft hair while she nipped at his pointed ear—

She began walking as he reached her, because the alternative was to wrap herself around him. “Brain fog. I need a cup of coffee.”

She’d slept poorly again last night. At first, it had been thanks to the memory of what they’d done in the hallway, but then her thoughts had shifted to Brann and Actaeon, to that last conversation with them, and she’d wished that she could find herself on that mental bridge, her friend Night sitting in his armchair beside her.

Not just to have someone to talk to, but to have him to talk to. About … everything.

Ruhn fell into step beside her. “Who would have thought the Hind had a caffeine addiction?”

His half smile did something funny to her knees. But he said nothing more as they explored the back hallway of the archives, opening and closing doors. A closet crammed with half-rotted brooms and mops, another closest adorned with trays of various quartz crystals—no doubt some sort of scholarly recording device needed for this technology-free island—and a few empty cells with chipped desks that must have once been private studies.

“Morven really needs to invest in a new break room,” Ruhn said as they finally beheld the kitchen. “This can’t be good for employee morale.”

Lidia took in the dark, dusty space, the wooden counter against the wall littered with mouse droppings, the cobwebs spun under the row of cabinetry. “This is like some bad medieval cliché,” she said, approaching the filth-crusted cauldron in the darkened hearth. “Is this … gruel?”

Ruhn stepped up beside her, and his scent had her going molten between her legs. “I don’t know why everyone thought Avallen would be some fairy-tale paradise. I’ve been telling Bryce for years that it’s horrible here.”

Lidia turned from the days-old goop in the cauldron and began opening cabinets. A mouse had made a home in a box of stale crackers, but at least there was a sealed jar of tea bags. “I should have known there would be no coffee.” She peered around for a kettle and found Ruhn standing with one by the ancient sink, pumping water into it.