“He won’t be coming here.” Rika spread her feet to give herself better balance. She watched Maili carefully as she added, “Third chance, Maili. Your Alphas direct you to leave.”

With a yell, Maili launched herself at Rika. “You are not my Alpha. Neither of you are.”

For several moments, Rika and Maili exchanged blows. Rika’s punches landed more often than not, but Maili was quick on her feet. Rika was out of practice, but her blows were more forceful than most faeries’ strikes. The fight wasn’t truly well matched; Rika was steadily pummeling Maili, and when the other faery realized that, she grabbed Rika by the throat.

“Bad idea,” Sionnach muttered.

Rika took Maili’s legs out from under her. The rebellious faery stumbled and—needing her arms to keep her balance—released Rika’s throat.

Promptly, Rika delivered a punch to the stomach.

Maili fell to the ground, legs curled to the side. She attempted to get up, and Rika kicked her before glancing up at Sionnach and nodding.

He looked at the faeries who had been there with Maili. “Spread the word that there will be an assembly today.”

As the faeries were departing, Rika yanked Maili to her feet and told her, “This wasn’t what I wanted. I asked you to leave before this had to happen.”

Sionnach hopped down and applauded. He moved slowly, but he’d often moved at that pace, a heightened cautiousness that faeries often saw as his deliberateness. In that moment, Rika wondered how often it had simply been a ploy to hide injuries he’d sustained.

“Step two,” Rika said quietly.

Sionnach smiled and echoed, “Step two.”

They escorted Maili to a mining shack on the hill in the same abandoned mining town that Sionnach often called home. After they trussed her up, they left Maili inside the solitary mine cart that was stored in the shack, and closed the door. Then, they waited for the faeries to arrive for their first assembly with their new co-Alphas.

Once the crowd had begun to gather, Sionnach climbed gracefully to the top of a dilapidated porch roof and balanced along the fractured railing as if he were oblivious to all the faeries—except Rika. He looked only at her as the faeries started coming closer. Then, he held out one hand to her.

She walked closer to the building and looked up at him as he stood motionless on the battered wooden railing. “What are you doing?”

He crouched down and held out a second hand. “Helping you up.”

With far less grace than he had, she clambered up to stand beside him and took his hand in hers.

“Showmanship,” he whispered.

Once she was steady, he released her hand and then hopped up to a higher roof, deftly avoiding a gaping hole that looked like a mess of splinters and glass. Then, he looked back at her.