“We won’t fight his battles for him,” Rika said as she stepped away from the now-bandaged faery. “We don’t do anything without choice.”

“We will if he has an Alpha out here who swears to him.” The temper in Sionnach’s voice was matched by the fury in his expression, and Jayce began to understand that the intense, changeable moods that Rika sometimes exhibited were simply the way of faeries. Sionnach looked livid where he’d been calm only moments before.

When Rika didn’t reply, Sionnach added, “I won’t stay here sworn to him, Rika. I won’t. You shouldn’t either. He’s not someone we can trust.”

“So is there someone you can trust?” Jayce turned the page and began sketching. It was a way to force himself not to stare at the two faeries, not to remind them that they were letting him see their world so much more than he’d expected.

“Donia!” Rika breathed the word. “She’s the new Winter Queen. She exists to oppose him, and she was like me, carrying Winter because we trusted him . . . and were mistreated by him. Her mortality was stolen by him.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Sionnach insisted. “There’s always a price with the court fey.”

“Donia was once like me, Shy. She’s not like them. Maybe—”

“No,” he interrupted. “I won’t swear to either of them—or any other court. We don’t need them here. Be my co-Alpha, Rika. Help me through this. Then, I’ll get well, and together we’ll keep the desert free. If you share Alpha status, we’re untouchable.”

“Not to a king or queen. He held his throne even when he was a bound king.” Rika’s voice had grown louder. Suddenly, she let out an audible sigh and walked over to Jayce. She looked down at his sketchbook. “Nice.”

Jayce flipped it around to show Sionnach a sketch of himself, but he looked healthy in it, reclining on the bed like a decadent monarch with platters of fruits and a decanter of wine in his reach. The food was overflowing, as if from a horn of plenty.

Sionnach laughed, his anger of a moment ago seemingly vanished, and he asked, “Is that a hint that it’s dinnertime?”

“It didn’t start that way, but maybe.”

Rika shook her head. “You”—she pointed at Sionnach—“rest. I’ll be back. . . .”

Sionnach made a faux-serious face. “Yes, Rika.”

After she left, Sionnach looked at Jayce and said, “I’m not interested in competing for Rika. She’s dating you, and sharing Alpha is not romantic.”