“I do not care.” After I speak with her, she will call off their mating just as I did to Leah. Then we can start our lives together.

Gryffin catches my arm in his unforgiving grip. “Take a minute to think this through.”

How can I think when my mind is in tatters? I fill my lungs and force out a breath. Two. Three.

They are right. I cannot show up to her home looking like I sleep in the dirt. Her family will never accept me then. “How did you find out?”

Maddox lifts his chin. “I have my ways.”

Gryff snorts. “River overheard some Seelie guards talking about it.”

“Dammit, Gryffin.”

I leave them to their squabbling, running back toward our small camp. When I reach the river, I leap straight in and scrub the blood and dirt from my body and clothes.

Water sloshes as I wade back to shore, goosebumps breaking across my skin. Not from the cold, but from fear. Fear of losing Kerris forever.

Gryffin hands me a towel from the line, and I mutter my thanks as I dry off and stomp into my barrel-top to throw on some clean trousers. When I return, both of my friends are waiting for me.

“What are you going to do?” Maddox asks.

“Stop the wedding.” Is that not obvious to him? I am hardly going across the canyon to ask to be added to the list of guests.

“Then what? Are you going to stay there? Because you know she cannot live here.”

“I know.”

Gryff stands up straighter, his expression growing grimmer as he realizes my meaning. “Maybe…”

“Maybe what?”

“Maybe it is for the best? The prince can give her a good life. A safe life.”

If that is what Kerris wants, then I will let her go. But I need to know for certain that what we shared no longer lives in her heart.

I take Nyx to the bridge, but cross on foot. When I reach the other side, four burly men stand guard, swords drawn as if expecting a wolf to emerge from the mist at any moment.

If they are startled to see me, they hide it well. The only movement between us is their hands flying to the hilts of their swords. Not the short daggers usually favored by the men who patrol this territory.

These are weapons of war.

“Turn back,” the one in front growls, a head shorter than me but nearly as broad across his shoulders.

“We have orders to slay anyone who crosses,” another bellows through whiskers as dark and thick as the west wood.

Slay me, will they? They will have to catch me first⁠—

I hear the telltale creak of someone at my back a split second before a hand clamps on my elbow. Gryffin and Maddox glower at the guards, but after a tense moment, they turn those glowers back on me.