Page 33 of Marked
Orion continued to chuckle and shook his head. “What you need to do is admit defeat—though you’re clearly a skilled marksman, and probably the closest in skill I’ve seen to Emi, you won’t best her. You may as well accept that now and take pride and comfort from knowing the queen paired you with the best. There is no beating her.”
My smile spread across my face. So much for being a humble winner.
No, scratch that. I was never going to be a humble winner.
“And you,” Orion turned to face me. “You need to accept that you work for the queen, not the other way around. I might not agree with every order that comes out of the palace, but I can’t find any fault with this one. The queen didn’t send you some amateur to stumble after you in the forest. She found someone competent, and as close to your skill level as she could possibly find. You should be content and satisfied with her decision.”
Lately, Orion had only voiced criticism for the royals, unhappy with their decision not to promote him to a royal healer as well as their blatant favouritism for bonded galeon descendants. For him to agree with the queen…
“Traitor,” I said.
Sley shook her head. “You might be immortal, Em, but you’re not invincible. Nala’s mishap clearly shows that. You shouldn’t be alone in those woods and if you won’t take Orion with you, then you should take this guy.” She jerked her chin in Ace’s direction. “If not for your own safety, for Nala’s.”
Shame spread through my body like a cold wave of ice. My skin pickled, and my stomach churned. I hadn’t thought about how this would make Nala safer.
And I should’ve.
I should always put my familiar first—period—before myself and certainly before my ego.
I swallowed, my mouth suddenly dry, and nodded.
Orion straightened, glared at Ace one last time, and stomped off to the front of my cabin. Hinges creaked as he opened the door and let himself in to check on Nala.
Sley slid off her perch. “I’ve got to head out too. I’ll catch you later?”
I nodded and she waved goodbye. “Nice to meet you, Ace,” she called over her shoulder as she left.
“So…” Ace said after Sley was out of earshot. “That’s your previous partner? I saw the two of you together at the bonfire last night.”
“Sley?”
“No. Onion.”
“Orion.”
“Whatever.”
“Rye and I have hunted together often over the years, but we were never officially assigned as partners by Queen Titania.”
“He doesn’t seem to like me,” Ace noted, his dark gaze flicking to my cabin.
“He literally just convinced me to accept you as my partner.”
“He didn’t do that alone. Sley provided a pretty convincing argument.” Ace gave me a pointed look. “And regardless, he certainly didn’t do that to help me out.”
“Is that so?” I crossed my arms over my chest. “Please. Tell me what inner motivations drive a man you just met?”
“He wants you to take me as a partner for the same reason your friend does,” Ace said. “He wants you and that familiar of yours safe. But that doesn’t mean he’s a fan of being replaced.”
I snapped my mouth shut.
“Is that the partner you slept with? Or was that someone else?” Ace asked.
“That would be none of your business.”
He glowered and stomped over to the second target while I retrieved arrows from the first one. While I could reuse some of mine with minimal or no repair, the shafts and fletching of Ace’s arrows were rendered useless from my shots. If he was willing to put in some work, he could take his damaged arrows apart to salvage the arrowheads. It was tedious work but worth it to reuse materials.
I tossed him the remains of his arrow. He caught it by the shaft, scowled at the chipped arrowhead, and dropped the whole thing to the ground.