Touch (Touched by the Fae 3)

“Ash, honey. What’s this?”

“It’s a sword.”

No shit.

Callie frowns. “I thought you got rid of those.”

“I did. I tucked them away for safe-keeping.” His golden gaze dims to a simmering bronze. “Can’t keep a sword around a baby.”

Me. He’s talking about me.

Only I’m not a baby anymore—and we all know it.

The room grows heavy with an awkward silence as Callie purses her lips. She looks like she wants to say something more before she parts her lips and lets out a soft sigh.

“If you think it’ll help…” She shakes her head, her long white-blonde hair—the same as mine—swaying with the motion. “You two do this. I’m going to take a shower.”

Ash leans down, pressing his lips against her cheek. He murmurs something to her and the swaying stops. Callie nods and, pressing her hand to his chest, she rises up on the tips of her toes, shifting so that she could give him a quick kiss.

Feeling as if I’m intruding on something private, I turn away. My gaze searches out Nine. I lift my hands to my own lips, smoothing them with the worn leather, wishing it was Nine’s breath warming them instead.

I only kissed Nine the one time. I would do just about anything to have the chance to do it again.

As if Ash can read my mind, he waits until Callie has closed the bedroom door behind her before he taps the point of his sword on the wooden floor, catching my attention.

I spin, whirling on him. “Huh?”

He lifts the sword, grabbing it by the tang so that he can offer me the hilt. “For you. You’ll need this if you’re going to fight Melisandre.”

It’s a good thing Callie found a reason to leave the room. Over the last few days, we’ve all made it a point not to discuss the inevitable outcome of the damn Shadow Prophecy. It’s almost as if, if we don’t talk about it, we can pretend that I’m not inching closer and closer to another confrontation with Melisandre.

Because I don’t want to admit that, either, I do what I always do.

I scoff. And I definitely don’t take the sword.

“Who says I’m going to fight her?”

“She may look innocent, but I assure you, she’s not. She won’t stand there and let you lop off her head. To get close to her, you’ll need to get past her guards.” Once he realizes that I’m not accepting it from him, Ash adjusts his hold on the sword, angling it so that weak lamp light glitters off the diamond edge. “I was one once, in a lifetime ago. I can train you. When the time comes to face her, I’ll stand by your side. If the scheme to get the Brinkburn succeeds, we’ll have Ninetroir’s blade as well. Melisandre will regret targeting my daughter before her end.”

I look at the sword.

I don’t get it. First Rys. Then Carolina. Now Ash?

They don’t get that I don’t want to be a killer, do they?

It all goes back to Madelaine’s murder. I spent more than six years feeling guilt for her death—to be honest, I still carry the blame for what happened to her—and it will forever weigh on me that everyone thinks I’m responsible for it.

And, well, I am. Without me and my connection to the fae, Madelaine would probably still be living happily with the Everetts. Maybe she’d be married. Maybe she’d be settled in a career. She always told me she wanted to be a vet because she loved animals.

Except she’s dead now.

Rys killed her. The golden fae who saved my life, saved my parents and my mate, killed my sister.

I can’t be like him. I won’t. Even if it means I end up a headless statue in Melisandre’s garden in Faerie, I won’t be a killer.

End her reign has to mean something else. It just has to.

Now if only I can figure out how to tell Ash that...