And that was exactly what I needed.
“Fine,” I said.
One word. No gratitude, no warmth. No hostility either. A ceasefire, not a surrender.
A flicker of surprise crossed his eyes before he buried it. He’d expected me to spit the offer back.
He wouldn’t go easy on me. I knew that from experience, having been on the receiving end of his methods. He’d push me until I broke, then push harder, because that was how he’d been forged himself: on the executioner’s block as a boy, in the wars that followed, in the grief of being the last of his bloodline.
I didn’t want easy. Easy wouldn’t save Missy.
Drakken stepped into the tent, dropped my bedroll, and crossed without a word to the center of the floor—the space between the three heirs’ bedrolls—and laid it down.
The most protected position in the tent.
He did it with brisk efficiency, like arranging a tactical formation: a high-value asset placed in the safest slot of a convoy. Not a shred of tenderness in the gesture. Just precision.
Caspian caught my eye, his look asking,Are you seeing this?
Yeah, I was seeing it. I just didn’t know what to do with it.
Before I could stand, Caspian scooped me up, and I was pressed against his broad chest, his T-shirt warm against my cheek, the wild heat of him seeping through. His heartbeat, strong and steady, faster than a human’s. The wolf in him ran hot.
“I can walk,” I said, softer than I’d intended. My body had apparently decided being carried was acceptable, whatever my mouth claimed.
“Let us take care of you,” Caspian said, the same words Aelindor had used, but rougher, warmer, with the easy possessiveness of a man who didn’t negotiate.
He lowered me onto the bedroll with a gentleness that didn’t match his size, then pulled the blanket up, tucking it around my shoulders, his large hands smoothing the edges, green eyes smiling in the dim light.
I felt like a child. Absurd, considering I was taller than him and had been responsible for everyone around me since I was eight. I’d tucked Missy in every night in the mine, made sure Rogue, Kaid, and Desta had water. I took care of people. That was how it worked.
Until now.
My throat tightened, not from panic but gratitude.
“Sleep, Max.” Aelindor’s voice came from his bedroll, where he’d settled with effortless grace, silver hair pooling like light on dark water. “You’re safe here. We’ll figure everything out in the morning.”
Safe.I hadn’t heard that word for a long time.
Resting on my back, I stared at the tent’s peak. Three heirs surrounded me, their presence saturating the air like heat radiating from sun-baked stone.
Aelindor’s power was the oldest, moving through the space like an underground river, immense, felt in the bones. He’d loosened the leash so his magic could shelter me, as if hiding what he was would do me less good than letting me feel the full weight of his protection.
Caspian’s energy ran opposite—reckless and kinetic. Even lying down, the wolf paced behind his ribs, radiating warmth like a banked fire, one ear tuned to the perimeter and one to me.
And Drakken. His presence was the hardest to name. Not warmth, not calm, but volcanic heat. I could feel his dragon close to the surface. He’d had every excuse to leave—Aelindor had given him a clean exit—but he’d brought my bedroll and stayed.
One alpha male in a confined space was already too potent. Three should have been suffocating. But their energies didn’t compete; they layered. Earth and wind and wild heat, each filling a different frequency. Together, they formed a fortress made of men.
In the mine, I’d been that wall. I carried the weight because no one else could.
And now three princes had arranged themselves around me and said,Sleep. The watch is ours.
The survival instinct screamed:Don’t trust it. It’ll be taken away.The rest of me sank into the bed and felt, for the first time in memory, what it was like to be held by something larger than my own will.
I let myself feel it. Just for a second. The strange, aching sweetness of being treasured by men who could raze cities but chose to tuck me into a bedroll and stand guard.
I wondered if I could get used to it.