“I promise you will be compensated,” he said coolly. “Handsomely.”
“I don’t give a shit about your money or how fucking abundant it is. I have a life that I enjoy, little patients to take care of. I had a date last night with someone I really like, but that went out the window thanks to you. I have a family who will go crazy. They’re probably going crazy right now. If you have a heart, if you have a shred of integrity, you will let me go.”
“Trust me, Ms. Sunder, I considered all these things and weighed every option. I knew you would not abandon your life willingly, hence the extreme measures I was forced to take. If there was any other way, you would not be here.”
“You bastard. The spoiled little prince has to have his way, no matter who he squashes in the process.”
His eyes narrowed and his jaw clenched tightly, the first sign of anger that had registered on his features. “This is not about me, I assure you. The future of my people rests in the balance, and I would do anything to spare them the misfortune that would come their way if I don’t act. One life, your life, is nothing compared to that.”
Tears burned in the back of my eyes, but I didn’t cry. Not in front of him. “I see. My life means nothing to you, then?”
He opened his mouth as if to argue, then shut it again. What could he respond without contradicting his earlier statement?
The hope I’d harbored died. There was a deep hollow left in my chest as it expired, and even though I tried to remain strong, my eyes filled with tears that quickly spilled down my cheeks.
When the prince noticed, he made as if to come closer, but stopped himself. “I know it fixes nothing, but I’m sorry.”
I hugged myself and turned my back on him, biting back a sob.
He stood behind me for a long moment while all I heard were his even breaths. “We leave in an hour,” he said at last, then strode out of the tent.
CHAPTER 5
Icurledinonecorner of the tent, hugging my legs and crying silently into my knees.
Mount Ruin. One thousand miles away.
How long would it take to travel that distance on horseback? I had no idea. To distract myself from the pain crushing my chest, I did some mental math, trying to calculate how long it would take me to jog that distance.
I could run a mile in fifteen minutes, so like ten days, if I was a robot and could run nonstop. But realistically, I could probably only do four to five miles a day without killing myself. So two hundred days, then.
How much faster was a horse? Three times? Four times? Five times?
I decided on four. That meant fifty days instead.
If I returned home after that long and told everyone I’d been kidnapped by the Prince of the Seelie Fae, they would understand, right? They would pat me on the back and say,“So sorry that happened. Here’s your job back, and no worries about the mortgage and bill payments you missed. Here is your beautiful home, which you so adore.”
And my family… they would survive that long without me. They might tear down the heavens and the earth looking for me, maybe murder a few unhelpful people in the process, but they would not be any worse for wear.
You’d better double that time, Dani,logical me said.
I was assuming there would be no detours, no mishaps, but that was hardly how things worked, right? Even back home, I could get a flat tire, run out of gas, encounter a group of hungry vampires that didn’t care to follow the law. Surely, there were comparable calamities that could assail us here. A sick horse, a band of crazed trolls, a constipated prince.
Bastard. Bastard. Bastard.
Light spilled into the tent as the flap was thrown open. I glanced up. Arabis stood there, looking all around, a bundle resting in her hands. Finally, she spotted me in the corner.
“There you are.” She deposited the bundle on a chair, came close, and kneeled in front of me. Her expression was sympathetic. “I’m sorry it has to be this way. I promise you, this isn’t easy for Kalyll or any of us. If there was any other alternative…”
“Spare me,” I bit back.
She ignored my animosity. “Think of it as an adventure vacation. It could be fun, and we won’t let anything bad happen to you.”
“Anything bad?”
She nodded enthusiastically. “We’re all good in a fight. Kryn can be an asshole, I admit, but you can just ignore him. Jeondar is my favorite, and Silver and Cylea aren’t bad either.”
“There will be... fighting?”