Page 20 of Heart’s Rescue

“What?”

“I know!” I reply. “Crazy, right?”

I run my hand along the back of my neck. Now that some of the tension’s gone out of me, I can feel exhaustion tugging at my arms and back. The monster isn’t very big, but I carried her a long way. And she still has my cloak. I glance up and find Phaedron staring at me with wide eyes and an open mouth.

“What did you do with her?” he asks.

I raise my hands in front of my chest like I need to defend myself. “I didn’t know what to do!”

“You let her go?” The slightest hint of judgment creeps into his voice, and hey, I can’t blame him.

“No. Uh, not really. She wasn’t exactly dressed for the Lands Below. I figured, if I left her, it’d be the same as killing her.”

Phaedron’s eyebrows go up. “You gave her your cloak, and then you let her go?”

“Phae,” I say like I’m trying to appease him. “Phae. I put her in Kara's barn.”

Now his eyebrows wrinkle together like he’s trying to solve a puzzle. “Kara's barn? Why?”

“Because I don’t know what to do!” I snap. “I need your help, Phae. You’re the one who’s good at dealing with women.”

Phaedron settles back on his throne of pillows. “Right. That is true.”

He grins as ice hits the roof. My mind drifts back to Kara's barn, which must be very cold and very miserable right about now. The light suddenly vanishes from the windows as if that thought alone had killed the glowsoft orbs.

“Well, bring her here, then,” Phaedron finally says.

“Here?”

“Rowan,” Phaedron says. “One of the first rules about ladies is that you don’t entertain them in a barn.”

Damn. I blow a breath out through my teeth. “Seems a little risky,” I say.

Phaedron’s smile fades, and the pain that’s just underneath comes through. Risky because he’s injured, of course, but I didn’t mean just that. Risky because she’s a monster from the Kingdom of the Summer, one of the monsters who trapped us down here to die slow and miserable deaths, and the voids alone know what dark intentions brought her here.

I remember her pulse beating against my fingers as I twisted the dagger from her hand, her wide, frightened eyes, the way she’d pulled away from me to run across the snow, her dark hair streaming out behind her. How she’d collapsed in the snow, her arms spread wide, flecks of ice dancing in her hair and melting on the exposed skin of her chest.

No, she hadn’t seemed especially threatening. But still.

“No. Not a risk,” Phaedron finally declares. He’s smiling again, and I’m glad, even if it seems a bit forced. “Because there’s nothing in the Lands Below that my brother couldn’t stop.”

Heat rises in my cheeks. “Thanks.”

Phaedron waves his hand at me, telling me to get going. I pull in a breath and turn toward the door.

“Okay,” I say, glancing back over my shoulder at my brother. “Are you ready to entertain a monster?”