He would deal with the revelations with which the others bombarded him. What he couldn’t bear was being deceived by Rui.
Then, being left.
It seemed that was all he was good for. Being left by women he loved.
“Danger,” Sorin uttered low, unsheathing his sword and dagger soundlessly.
The big warrior was in the lead as they progressed through the underground tunnel, just wide enough to fit two men’s width, with the ceiling an inch or two above Sorin’s height. He was followed by Ere and Rui.
Ere was unarmed, and he stayed close to Sorin like the warrior’s shadow. The two males moved as one.
Rui’s sword was slung across her back. In her arms was a crossbow. The same one she won off the belligerent soldier’s troop the night Wolfe first met her in the tavern on the way to Caerleon.
It seemed like ages ago, that fateful night, instead of mere days.
Rui glanced behind her, as if she could hear his thoughts.
Their eyes connected briefly, before he determinedly looked away. He didn’t look back until she turned around again.
He and Morgan drew up the rear.
Up ahead, there was a series of thuds and low groans as bodies hit the stone ground. As they passed the enemies Sorin so effortlessly dispatched, Wolfe saw that one of the men’s eyes were still open as he lay in a heap against the tunnel wall.
His eyes were completely black and opaque. More of Guinevere’s “minions,” as Ere put it.
“Tunnel widens,” Sorin warned. “Visibility low. Ere, with me. Morgan, stay close to Rui and Wolfe.”
Immediately, Wolfe realized why the visibility was low.
Dense fog swirled up to their waists. It was impossible to see their legs and feet. The mist thinned above the waist, but everything was still hazy and indistinct. If the tunnels had not been lit by an eerie white-blue glow, they wouldn’t be able to see anything at all.
Where was that glow coming from? Wolfe wondered. There were no torches to light their way. It was as if the mist brought its own light.
He looked ahead at these strangers who had become comrades in arms, as they were now headed into certain battle together.
Sorin and Ere glanced slightly behind them and around them, showing their faces in profile. Sorin’s eyes seemed to dance with inner flames, sparking with gold and red. Ere’s eyes burned a bright sapphire blue, deeper than his usual turquoise.
Wolfe had always sensed that these travelers were not “average.” Now, he suspected with these recent revelations, that perhaps they weren’t even fully human.
Morgan’s eyes also glowed with flames, an orange red that swirled within the mist, just like the halo of her bright-colored hair, the curls of which seemed to crackle with a life of their own.
Finally, Wolfe looked at the silvery head of one particular member of their unlikely group, who had become a friend…then a lover.
And at last, his love.
Rui looked back again in that moment, meeting his eyes. Her own lapis lazuli gems shone like a night sky full of stars.
Fear. Courage. Worry. Sadness. Regret.
And a pure, undiluted, uninhibited freedom of feeling.
It was all in her eyes.
It was all for him.
And Wolfe knew.
It didn’t matter whether she trusted him fully or not. It didn’t matter what she hid. He would die to protect her. He would fight for her to his last breath.