Wayfarer's Keep (The Broken Lands, #3)

by T.A. White

Gawain guffawed as he looked between their group. “Let me guess which one of you came up with that.” Shea crossed her arms over her chest and gave him a cool smile. “It was a team effort.” “Sure, it was,” Gawain said.

“My love, if you wanted my attention, you only had to ask. There was no need to go out and kill the biggest thing you could find.”

A huge piece of him hated letting her do this. It whispered and tantalized, telling him he needed to keep her safe, that letting her go was dangerous. It tortured him with visions of all that could go wrong, of how he could lose her in a split second. He was almost used to the feeling by now. It had only grown as his feelings for his telroi had grown. He’d gladly massacre the world for her, conquer it and turn her into an empress, draw down the moon and stars if that was what she wanted. Too bad her greatest desire wasn’t power or wealth. Those things, he could give her in abundance. No, what Shea wanted most in the world was to feel needed and useful.

It put Fallon in the uncomfortable position of having to care for someone else’s good opinion. He preferred it when he could just crush his opposition.

In an innocent voice, she asked, “Did you have fun hunting?” A pinch landed on her side, and she jerked up, one hand going to the offended spot as she leveled a mocking glare on him. “That’s for not warning me,” he told her. “I did tell you it wasn’t what you thought,” she said. “Your entire people are insane,” he grumbled. She snorted. “That’s rich coming from you.” He leveled a displeased look on her. “My people are perfectly normal. It’s everyone else that is irrational.”

“You’re getting a bit slow from your easy assignment,” Gawain said, prodding the other man. Trenton slid a dark look his way. “You’ve seen the types of situations she gets herself into. Does this seem like a cushy assignment to you?” Gawain gave a small shrug, conceding Trenton’s point with a small smirk. Shea ignored the banter. She did not get herself into situations. She saw a problem and fixed it. Not her fault that things often avalanched from there.

There was a reason she had chosen a position that didn’t require much interaction with other human beings except within the scope of a mission. They were being willfully obtuse, missing a point that should have been obvious to even a child. It made her want to shake them.

Once again, he thanked all the gods above that she’d been the one to save him in that village what felt like ages ago. He couldn’t imagine what life might have been like if she hadn’t crashed into it with all the grace of a buffalo, looking like an avenging goddess of old.

In that moment Shea felt a profound connection to this man. He challenged her, supported her when she faltered, and played with her in those rare instances they had the time. He was her heart, her soul, the perfect complement that softened her rough spots as she did his.

Shea was a visionary. She saw the world as it should be rather than as it was. She saw hope where he would destroy so he might start again.

She’d done her part. She’d recovered the Lux, given the mythological back his charm, and killed her first love. She didn’t have anything left to give. Someone else could deal with putting an end to the dark for good.

She simply didn’t have the energy to tell him what a short-sighted nincompoop he was being.

“Stand for Shea Halloran of the three names, Battle Queen to the Trateri horde, Slayer of the Dark, and the Flock’s Burning One.”