Dante breathed in the crisp northern air, glad to be home. Somehow, everything was different north and south of the Bartoqs. Here, the air was cleaner, fresher. And not just the air, everything was better. Even the dirt was more welcoming; it was soft enough he wouldn’t need to make another fucking twig bed.

Dante had signaled to Tamar that they were close enough to Pregg that they needed to land, not wanting the princess to even see the city. After their lunch and rest, Gordy and Tamar left. The princess had doted on the dragon, thanking him for the flight, giving him scratches. Tamar had embraced Dante, promising to deliver the gold to Delle and keep everything else a secret.

He hadn’t bothered chastising her for gossiping with the princess while he was in the woods, feeding her bullshit lines about Dante having intimacy issues. If he ever found a worthwhile woman--not a monster, not a princess, not someone else’s betrothed, not a target--he’d have no problem getting attached.

Dante had guided the princess through fields and woods. There wasn’t a thick forest that provided ample cover as in the South, but as long as they stayed away from the main roads, Dante wasn’t worried about trouble finding them. The dragon ride certainly curtailed the danger of royal guards tracking them. Sure, fae or aerial shifters could still catch up to them, but Wassalia was a huge country. They’d have to find them first.

The sun lowered and the temperature with it. Dante knew it was coming. That was another change on this side of the mountains. The nights were cold. He didn’t mind the cold, not usually. He set the bar low when determining if the temperature was too hostile: as long as it wasn’t cold enough to kill him or make him lose an appendage to frostbite, it was fine.

Of course, the princess likely disagreed. They hadn’t even stopped for the night and she’d already put his leathers back on and wrapped the blanket around her as she walked. The night was only going to get colder, and the princess herself would only get colder once they quit moving. He gave most of his money to Tamar to give to Delle, and he didn’t want to spend what little he kept on a room right away. He’d have to build a fire and keep it going all night once they made camp.

So Dante did. He found the most out of the way spot he could, tucked into a rocky knoll, and made them a fire. They ate from their pack and drank from a stream. All the while the princess attempted to make light conversation. He only answered in one or two word responses, when he deigned to respond at all. That hurt and confused look passed over her face when she asked him about a particularly lovely flower that bloomed only in the North and only at night, glowing--literally--in the moonlight, and he’d ignored her.

He hadn't had the nerve to look at her face since, and she had given up trying to talk to him. So the princess had fallen asleep shortly after, laying on the bare dirt, curled around the fire. Dante had checked the perimeter of their little camp and decided it was secure enough for him to rest, too. He laid on the other side of the fire and watched the flames dance, some kind of pang hitting his heart each time they lowered to reveal the form across from him, a frown on her face even in sleep. He fell asleep shortly after, a frown on his face as well.

Dante awoke to the sound of a blade being unsheathed and had his magic gripped around the culprit before the sword was even all the way out of the scabbard. He sniffed the air and three distinct male scents filled his nose. Scents he recognized from the Cavs. From Sol’s empire.

Fuck. This wasn’t a random attack because he’d announced their location with a fire. These men were here for him. For Bear.

He used his magic to squash the fire, plunging them in darkness to gain the upperhand. They’d be blind as their eyes adjusted. But his heightened eyesight could already make them out clearly.

Ignoring the fae he already had contained, Dante focused on the other two now stumbling and cursing--another fae and one he knew to be a hawk shifter, though he was currently in humanoid form.

He used his magic to fling the contained winged-man into the others, knocking the three of them onto their asses several yards away. Then he gathered them all together, squeezing tightly with invisible binds.

Vissick shifted into his bird form, thinking that would enable him to escape Dante’s grip. He was wrong. Dante squeezed tighter, the hawk floating in midair between the faes.

The commotion roused Bear. He looked to find her pushing herself off the ground and taking a fighting stance, though her dagger was still sheathed in his boot. She seemed to realize that and backed up into the knoll, pressing herself into the rock. The scent of her fear had Dante growling.

He didn’t go straight to the men. He turned back to the camp--to Bear--and relit the fire first. She didn’t need to be alone in the dark and cold while he took care of them. Only when he met her gaze in a silent command to stay away did he prowl toward the trio.

The features of the men warped as the distant firelight and shadows took turns ebbing and flowing over their faces, but Dante knew them well enough from brief meetings over the years. The shorter fae, Arnal, was only a few years younger than Dante with close cropped auburn hair and dead eyes set into a pockmarked face. Arnal was one of Sol’s minions who’d never curried the lord’s favor, though he’d attempted to win it by being as cruel as their master. He didn’t only steal, maim, and kill for Sol. He did it for himself, too. For fun. The fun he had with women was even worse.

Mijer was even younger and blond, his face already revealing regret in attempting to take what belonged to Dante. As far as Dante could tell, Mijer was nothing but another unlucky lost soul thrust into the underbelly of the Cavs against his will. He’d never gotten the impression the blond fae enjoyed what he did. Just as Dante didn’t. He’d never heard of the youth taking lives or women against their will for fun.

Dante didn’t have any feelings one way or the other toward the shifter, Vissick. He wasn’t an assassin. He was just an impressive tracker--likely the best in all Wassalia--and Sol used him mainly for that. He’d likely just been tasked with finding the princess for the other two. Dante was certain it would have been the faes charged with handling her.

Dante stood a few feet away, planting his feet and cracking his knuckles in front of his chest in a show of intimidation that he knew was much less impressive in his linen outfit than it would have been in his black leathers. Hopefully they were smart enough to know his clothes had no effect on his ability to kill them. “This is my job. What are you doing here?”

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The shorter fae offered a cold smile. “Lord Somanti is displeased with you,” Arnal said. He flicked his eyes behind Dante and a darkness overtook them as he gazed upon Bear. “Be a man and give yourself up. If you let us do this the easy way, I won’t make you watch what I do to her.” He spoke loudly as if he wanted Bear to hear. As if he wanted her to be scared when he did whatever it was he thought he was going to get to do to her.

Unbeknownst to him, the fae had just ordered his own execution.

Arnal twitched his wings as if he thought he’d be able to extend them and fly away. When they remained plastered to his back, his eyes shot back to Dante, now filled with shock and fear. A sick crack followed by a thud echoed as Dante broke his neck and let the fae’s body crumple to the ground. Mijer shook his head as he made pleading noises from behind the invisible binds.

The sharp intake of breath behind him informed Dante that Bear was watching.

A shame unlike anything he’d ever felt overtook him. He’d taken dozens of lives. He hadn’t liked doing it, but he accepted it. Compartmentalized it as what he needed to do to survive. To provide. And ever since he was old enough, respected enough, to make such decisions and demands, he’d only accepted jobs if he thought the target deserved it.

He would have taken Bear’s life, thinking she deserved it, had he not been forced to accept the delivery assignment instead.

And he’d have been wrong. How many others had he been wrong about?

But Arnal, with his cruelty and those sick plans for Bear, he deserved it. Didn’t he?

For the first time, Dante considered it wasn’t his place to determine that.

When the fae threatened Bear, Dante had planned to kill all three of them. The other two would have been complicit, if not participants, if they’d been able to get Dante out of their way. But after hearing that one sharp intake of breath, he could no longer stomach it.

“You tell Sol she is mine and I have it under control. Track us again, Vissick, and you’ll find yourself in a shallow grave, too.” He hadn’t taken that long. He was going to deliver her well before the deadline. Sol can shove his displeasure up his ass.

Dante released the other two, the bird and fae shooting into the sky to disappear beyond the southern horizon. Then he used his magic to bury the corpse far from where Bear was sitting pressed against the rocky knoll, still watching.

He walked back to the fire. He didn’t look at Bear, but he could feel her eyes on him. He laid on the ground, facing away from the flames and the princess beyond. He didn’t close his eyes. He wasn’t going to sleep again tonight.

“Who were they?” she asked quietly.

“Some of my brethren. We serve the same master.”

Her heartbeat and breathing quickened again at that. “What did they want?”

Dante stared at the dirt and rocks in front of his face. “You, I suppose. My master must not approve of the job I’m doing and offered your bounty to them instead.”

“That doesn’t make any sense.”

“Tell me about it.” Fucking prick. Lunin, Dante couldn’t wait to be rid of Sol once and for all. He vaguely wondered what would happen if he just killed the lord after completing the mission and collecting the fee. He deserved it and Dante would not give one flying fuck about whether it was or was not his place to determine that. But he couldn’t. Sol was his master.

Dante could hear Bear’s teeth chattering as she shook. He didn’t know if it was from the cold or from shock. Gods, she’d just watched him kill a man. Shame and dread washed over him anew.

“I’m sorry.” Not for ridding the world of a piece of shit like Arnal, despite his revelation, but because he’d done it in front of her. She’d told him she’d never killed anyone. She’d likely never seen it done, either. She’d have nightmares of that sound. Just as he had the first several times he witnessed—and delivered—death.

He heard Bear get up, but he didn’t turn around. She likely needed to be alone. Needed to process. Needed to put some space between her and the threat that she must finally realize he was. But Dante listened. He listened to her footsteps as she walked around the fire to his side and dropped to her knees behind him. Then he felt. He felt as she slid her palm along his arm up to his shoulder, then grasped it firmly, tugging him slightly in a request to turn around.

He obeyed.

Dante turned from his side to his back. He stared up at the starry sky, Bear’s shadow falling on him as she obstructed the firelight. He hoped her back wasn’t getting too hot.

He wouldn’t look at her.

That hand of hers on his shoulder moved up, onto his face. He closed his eyes, focused on the feel of it as it slid across his jaw, as her thumb hooked in front of his ear and her fingers moved across his neck and behind it, her fingertips slipping into his hairline. He swallowed hard, his lips parting involuntarily.

Her other hand landed on his stomach. Then it was sliding. Up and over his chest. It flowed over the collar of his shirt and again their flesh connected as it wrapped around the base of his neck.

Then she was pulling him up, pulling him toward her. And he couldn’t resist. He sat up.

“Look at me,” she whispered urgently, commandingly.

Dante opened his eyes to find hers mere inches away, a look of determination on her face.

“You have nothing to be sorry for. I heard him. Do you know what someone like that would do with your powers? What they would have done to you--to me--if they could? What you could do with your powers, but choose not to?”

Of course he did. He gritted his teeth.

“You’re not a monster, Con.”

Bear wrapped her arms around him, guiding his chest into hers. Then she pressed his head down, onto her shoulder. As if he were the one who needed to be consoled right now.

Maybe he was.

Dante’s arms remained by his sides, not returning the embrace. But he let Bear hold him.

For the first time, Dante admitted to himself that the princess wasn’t a monster, either.

#

When day arrived, Dante asked Bear to stay close as he peeled off his clothes and uncoiled his hair to submerge himself in a nearby creek. The water was clear and biting, the chill of the night still penetrating enough to make it knock the breath out of him. But he remained, letting the water wash over him, scrubbing at blood that wasn’t there.

As they hiked, Bear once again attempted to speak to him. Gently, without pressure to respond. She only spoke of the woods around them, nothing personal. By midday, Dante was pointing out landmarks and interesting flora she wouldn’t have seen in the South. At nightfall, he found one of those luminescent night-blooming flowers she’d asked about.

Dante removed a petal and crushed it between his fingers, then painted her face with the glowing product as Carson had taught him when he was a kid. By Bear’s tightly pressed lips, he could tell she didn’t quite understand what he was doing, why he was trailing his fingers across her forehead and down her cheeks. But then he instructed her to crush a petal herself and paint his face.

Bear’s eyes widened as her soft, delicate fingers flowed along his nose and cheeks, and he was happy he had removed his beard yesterday, giving her a bigger canvas. Her laugh was bright as she crushed petal after petal, drawing glowing swirls down his neck and across the backs of his hands, then her own—their only exposed skin.

He didn’t bother hiding his smile at her joy. He wasn’t sure if he could even if he’d tried.