What was going on? I walked right up to him and he flinched, averting his gaze, stepping backwards and continuing to call for me.
“I have to find her,” he muttered to himself, or to Marcus – it was hard to tell. “She’s my responsibility. I will find her. I promise.”
His head half tilted in my direction. “I promise.”
With that, he started to move, his movements uncharacteristically uncoordinated as he picked up the pace to a near jog. His progress was louder than it had been all day as he crashed through the darkness. Marcus and I hurried in his wake, doing all we could to keep him in sight. My body was already aching from the walking we had done since dawn; it had been a crazy few days. Between the Metes and then our escape last night, and what happened to Marcus’s father, I had never felt so weary. And now, Marcus and I were trying to keep pace with a man who had grown up in terrain like this, and I was exhausted.
“Devyn,” I called as I pulled in a laboured breath. He had to slow down; I couldn’t keep this pace up. If I couldn’t keep up, he would abandon me. That was my last thought as I went flying. Marcus was too late to catch me as I tripped on some tangled tree roots that were hidden by the fallen leaves. I put my hands out in an attempt to save myself as I faceplanted onto the forest floor. I could hear Marcus calling for Devyn to stop as I tried to shake off the shock of the fall.
“Don’t touch her.” Devyn’s voice was sharp as he turned to find Marcus trying to help me up off the ground. “Get your filthy city hands off her.”
Stung, Marcus snapped his hands from where they were around my shoulders, turning to snarl in Devyn’s direction. “You have no right to tell me who I can and cannot touch, Wilder.”
Devyn strode across the clearing, coming to a halt inches from Marcus who stood his ground. “I said, don’t touch her,” he snarled, still not looking in my direction. “I have to find Cass. Where did she go?”
“Devyn, I’m right here. I didn’t go anywhere,” I whispered, baffled and deeply disturbed by the dark emotions swirling through him: self-loathing, despair and an overwhelmingly frantic pulse. He really couldn’t see me, which stood in total contradiction to his reaction to Marcus helping me off the ground. I stood and laid my hand on his arm. I was already terrified in my own right; I didn’t need his emotions amplifying mine. As it was, my entire body was giddy with fear.
I attempted to push some reassurance of my presence through the bond, only to be resoundingly rebuffed as he blocked against me.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he chanted, his eyes glittering in the dark. “I found her. Like I promised. I found her. I don’t know how I lost her again.”
“Devyn, snap out of it.” Marcus pulled me back from the Briton who looked and sounded increasingly unstable. But this only roused him from his stupor.
“I said not to touch her,” he shouted at Marcus, the tendons standing out in his neck, his eyes flashing.
He finally looked directly at me, his dark eyes almost wholly black. “I know I’m not worthy, I know it. I won’t touch her again, but please give her back to me. I’ll keep her safe, no matter what it takes,” he implored me. “Please, my lady.”
My lady? He never called me my lady. A mocking princess or a scolding Cass, but never my lady. He thought I was someone else. Devyn was seeing someone else; that’s why he was trying not to look at me. He hadn’t wanted Marcus to interact with me either, but it hadn’t been like with the boy earlier. He had been enraged when Marcus had touched me; whoever it was he was seeing, she meant something to him. My lady… my mother?
“Ask him who it is he thinks I am?” I directed Marcus. Marcus frowned before his face cleared in understanding.
Devyn was muttering to himself, still searching frantically for signs of me, I presumed. He looked up as Marcus softly called his name.
“Who is it you’re talking to?” Marcus asked quietly in the dark.
“You don’t see her?” Devyn seemed confused. “But you were touching her. You can’t touch her. She is… well, I suppose you are more worthy to touch her than I, even in death. I can never make up what was lost. He chose me over her. He shouldn’t have done that. She was worth a hundred, a thousand, of me.”
“Who?” Marcus pressed.
Devyn didn’t answer. His focus was elsewhere, his eyes darting away, seeking me.
“Let’s concentrate on getting out of here,” I urged Marcus. “Maybe once we’re out of this damn forest, he’ll snap out of it.”
“What did she say?” Devyn looked at Marcus suspiciously.
“She wants us to continue to Oxford. Cass is waiting for us there,” Marcus supplied ingeniously.
Devyn’s eyes lit up at learning of my location. “Let’s go then.” He moved off into the night. Marcus nodded at me but didn’t reach out to take my hand as that seemed likely to set Devyn off again. We made sure we stayed close together as we trailed in his wake though; the last thing we needed was the handfast impacting me now, clouding my judgement at the worst possible time.
Was he seeing my mother? I saw again the woman in my vision cut down by the sentinels. Devyn told me his father had been her protector; he knew who I really was. If I had family, a place to be out here, I just had to get through this. I had to survive the night.
We moved slower now, carefully navigating our way in the dark, the crunch of our footsteps and heavy breathing unfortunately not the only sounds as we made our way, slipping and
