“Who is that?” she asked, her hand raised to protect her eyes from the burning rays of the setting sun. It was almost impossible to pick out the features of the figure flying toward them. For all she knew, it could’ve been King Dunston himself.
“It’s Drake!” Blake exclaimed, and though she was relieved to know that his twin was safe, she couldn’t help but feel her stomach clenching at the fact that Menion was not flying at his side.
“He’s alone,” she pointed out grimly. Blake squeezed her shoulder as if he were trying to comfort her, but she wasn’t stupid. She knew how he really felt about Menion. He’d never hidden his hatred of the foreign prince.
“He’ll be alright,” Blake insisted. “He has to be.”
Kira knew the words Blake had chosen to leave out: for you. It seemed the Winter King knew as well as she did that her heart would be broken if the prince did not return.
She didn’t get the chance to respond, because Drake dropped down onto the clifftop beside them. He looked utterly exhausted, clutching his side as if the area where he’d taken the arrow was still aching. Kira had to admit, her own side was aching too, and she felt sick whenever she thought of the pain that had erupted through her when her tears had healed him. She would be happy so long as she never had to feel anything like that ever again.
Parting her lips, she prepared to ask what had happened, bracing herself for the answer. But it appeared she didn’t need to ask, because Drake announced reassuringly, “Menion is alive.”
Kira felt all the tension fading from her shoulders, and she realized the only thing left to hold her up was Blake’s arm around her shoulders. Drake crossed the small distance between them and came to wrap himself around Kira, barely giving his brother a chance to get out of the way. The metallic scent of blood and the musky scent of sweat covered Drake, and yet it didn’t matter to Kira as she threw her arms around him and began to weep with relief against his broad chest.
“You’re okay,” she wept. “You’re all okay!”
“Thanks to you,” Drake responded, stroking the hair at the back of her head comfortingly.
Regaining control over herself, Kira pulled back just enough to look up into Drake’s eyes and ask, “Why didn’t Menion return with you?”
Seeing the look on Drake’s face, she feared she already knew the answer. Again, she braced herself to hear his answer. “Menion has decided to escort his father home to be sure he truly goes, and he wishes to say goodbye to his mother.”
Kira felt the king tensing in her arms even as he spoke, and she could almost feel his guilt as if it were her own. Her heart began to hammer with sympathy for him. Of course! He doesn’t know! She realized.
“We have to go back! You have to take me back to the ship!” she snapped suddenly, yanking herself free of Drake’s arms. In that moment she felt as though she would’ve dived off the cliff into the ocean and begun to swim for the ship if she had to.
“They are already preparing to leave for the Forgotten Isle,” Drake protested. Glancing at his brother, he added, “I left your men with Menion to escort his father home.”
Blake simply nodded his approval of his brother’s decision before he turned to Kira and asked, “My love, why would you ever want to return to that ship?”
“Because I promised Menion that he could trust me,” she told them. “I told him I could cure his mother.”
“The cure was lost,” Drake reminded her, speaking as if he couldn’t bring himself to voice the fact that the cure was lost because it had been used to heal him instead. Kira was suddenly overwhelmed by a mixture of emotions, from guilt to excitement and seemingly everything in between. She wasn’t sure which were her own and which were her mates’, but what she did know was the excitement was all her.
“You don’t understand. I can give Menion more tears,” she told them, almost screaming the words in her effort to get them to hear her, “I still have my powers.”
“But that can’t be,” Blake objected, shaking his head as if to clear his ears to be sure he’d heard her right, “You certainly aren’t a virgin anymore.”
“I know,” Kira chuckled slightly with embarrassment as she remembered all she’d allowed her mates to do to her. “But I’m telling you! I still have my powers. I’ve had multiple visions since then. I saw my kidnapping, and I saw you flying me back to land.”
She looked at Blake pleadingly before turning her gaze on Drake, begging them to listen to her with every fiber of her being. She had no hope of reaching Menion if they didn’t agree to help her. Even if she did manage to swim all that way, there was no way of telling what might try to eat her along the way.
The twins looked at each other silently, seeming to have a silent conversation of their own before they both finally shrugged and turned to her with a nod.
“I will take you back,” Blake promised her, and within seconds she’d been swung up into his arms. Drake stepped up beside them and placed a hand upon his brother’s shoulder.
He glanced from Kira to his brother and back again before he announced, “I’m coming too.”
Luckily for them, it appeared the battle had left some holes in the sails, which needed to be repaired before the ship could raise its anchor. Several of the men from the Forgotten Isle looked up warily from their tasks as Blake dropped back onto the deck with Kira in his arms. It was instantly clear who was in charge of the ship. The men of the Winter Isle, in their white and silver armor, were standing proudly at the edges of the deck, watching the men in blue and yellow who were scrubbing the wood and mending the sails, getting the ship ready to leave.
“King Blake! King Drake! Lady Kira!” Menion exclaimed as he appeared from the door of the cabin at the far end of the deck. He rushed forward with open arms, and Kira threw herself into them the moment Blake placed her on her feet.
“You’re all in one piece,” she observed when she took a moment to step back and look him up and down. Menion smiled down at her for several moments with obvious joy at seeing her. Then his expression began to darken, and he held her at arm’s length to look her up and down in return.
“What are you doing here? What’s wrong?” he demanded. As if he thought Kira wouldn’t give him an honest answer, he looked to the twins. Kira could barely contain her excitement as she reached up and took hold of the prince’s face in her palms, forcing him to look at her once more.
“Menion, I can heal your mother!” she exclaimed in a voice so excited that it almost became shrill, “I mean, I still have my powers. We can collect more tears.”