Glow (The Plated Prisoner, #4)

by Raven Kennedy

I won’t allow another storm to touch Auren. She has been flooded and wrung out, left to

take the barrage without shelter. But so long as I’m here, I will be her shelter.

Auren. “She’s gonna wake up, you know.” I swallow hard, all the light amusement draining back out of me. “You sound sure.” “That’s because I am,” she says before she unfolds herself and gets to her feet. “You took my belligerence and tossed a uniform in my face. You met Osrik’s kill drive and decided to give him your sword. You saw every jail cell that couldn’t hold Judd and, instead of tossing him in another one, let him keep the keys. This time, you found your goldfinch and watched her leave her cage. She’ll open her eyes, just like you got the rest of us to do.” “This is a little more literal. I fucking rotted her.” Lu just shrugs. “We’ve all got a little rotten in us, and I wouldn’t change that for anything. It’s how we’ve survived.”

I let out a sigh and drag a hand down my face. “Does no one actually listen to my orders?” Ryatt gives me a scowl and then stalks into the kitchen. “Not when your orders are stupid,” Judd answers jovially. I need to punch something. I really do.

My thoughts snap back to that night when Auren told us about Rissa. About how the bitch was basically blackmailing her. I suggested we kill her. I suggest killing a lot. “Yeah, she did. Gildy is way too fucking nice,” I grumble under my breath. “Excuse me?” she says in her uppity voice. “You heard me,” I retort, looking at her with disgust. “You threatened her, made her give you shit in return for your silence, and still, all she wanted to do was help you. I said we should just kill you. Because if there’s one thing I hate, it’s disloyalty.”

There’s a spark of heat in her eyes right before she puts it out, and that petulant, pouting look comes back over her face. “What makes you think I’d ever want to?” I give her a crooked smile before I turn and scoop up the bowls. “Because, Yellow Bell, you might be poisonous, but you’re not immune. There’s something here.” “Yeah, loathing.” With a grin tucked behind my beard, I head for the tent’s opening, stopping to look over my shoulder at her one more time as I push back the flap. “What’s the fun in it if you don’t loathe each other just a little bit?”

“Wake up, Goldfinch. You have to wake up!” Her power is splashing, her aura gone erratic, and panic surges through me so thoroughly that I might be quaking too. “I’m not going to rot you again, do you hear me? I can’t fucking do it. So wake up!”

“Auren.” I try to take a tentative step forward, but a snarl rips from her throat. My eyes rake over every inch of her, assessing. When I take a step, she thrusts out her hand, sending a rope of gluey gold shooting out at me like a whip. But it doesn’t make contact. Instead, it was merely a warning. My lips tip up into a smirk, while her eyes taper in suspicion. Oh, Goldfinch, I see you.

“So, you’ve finally woken up,” I say casually, barely glancing at the whip of gold hovering mid-air, like it’s ready to strike at any moment. “Not a morning person?” Another snarl comes gnashing through her teeth. “I didn’t think so. That’s alright, Ryatt’s worse. Although,” I muse, glancing toward the cave’s darkening entrance, “it’s nighttime now, anyway.”

“Come out to play, Goldfinch, and I’ll kiss you all you like.” Her

“Come out, Goldfinch.” A delicate, warm hand comes up to my cheek, and she turns my head to look at her. “Come back, baby,” I say softly before I reach out and cup her jaw, letting my thumb drag across her cheek. “Come back to me.”

“It’s true,” he says firmly, his eyes pulling me in. “You’re fae, just like me, which means we’re going to have wild, raving urges. Like fighting and fucking. Those two go hand in hand.”

“You slept in here with me?” To say I’m taken aback is putting it mildly. The idea that he would stay with me makes me feel oddly vulnerable. He cocks his head. “Where else would I be if not with you?”

“I claimed you that night in Ranhold,”

spirit. “And then you claimed me right back, in the middle of a ballroom for everyone to hear. Or don’t you remember?”

“I want to go see the cave.” “You want to keep avoiding everything,” he counters. A barbed laugh scrapes past my lips. “And if I do? That’s my prerogative. I have been controlled and owned for over twenty years of my life,” I say, eyes flashing. “So if I want to avoid something and see a damned cave, then that’s what I’m going to do.”

I’ve always been treated like treasure, but with Slade, I’m simply treasured.

head. “No. You used your power on me, not against me. Because you’re right, I was dying.” He flinches—so subtly that I barely catch it. “I… You’re not angry?” A frown plants itself between my brows. “Why would I be angry?” Now he looks positively bewildered. “I fucking rotted you, Auren. Stole into your body and shut it down, putting you in a stasis of spoiled decay.” My nose wrinkles. “Well, I could do without the visual of stasis of spoiled decay,” I mutter. “I risked your life,” he goes on, and I realize these are the words that have been running through his head since the moment he used his magic on me, that he’s been tormenting himself with self-proclaimed blame. “I used my power against you, and then I kept you like that when I took you and got you as far away from your gold as I could, risking your life again with every minute that I waited.” He pulls at his hair in frustration, glancing around the darkness like he’s looking into the crevices of his own guilt. “What if I’d waited too long? What if I hadn’t been able to reverse it?” “You’ve been hating yourself this whole time.” It’s not a question—I can see the truth plainly, can hear it in the way he’s talking. Gently, I take his hand in mine, squeezing his fingers. “You saved me,”