“No need to save you, I suspect.” Preston’s words drummed around the clearing, its edge sinking into my skin.
I bit my tongue. “No,” I gritted, my voice hoarse as I twisted around, my arms bound behind my back.
The movement dragged the thorns deeper. They scraped along raw flesh, catching in the soft skin beneath my sleeves. I hissed through my teeth as a fresh sting bloomed, sharp and hot. The vines resisted, tightening like shackles, punishing every inch I moved. My shoulders burned from the strain. My sight blurred, but I forced my chin higher.
“I thought so.” His smile was sharp, a flash of teeth in the dim light, reminiscent of a fox sizing up its prey.
Bending down, he retrieving my knife with fluid grace, his fingers brushing the blade as if it were a delicate artifact rather than a weapon. He didn’t even flinch as the nettle’s leaves caressed his skin, nor did he need to scratch.
I scowled. Of course he was immune to a plant that was as irritating as him.
“Shall we strike that deal, now?” he asked, casually turning my knife between his fingers. “I save you…again.” He mocked, his voice like curling smoke. “And you tell me what you’re so desperately searching for.”
My nostrils flared, my eyes narrowed, and a single tear broke free, tracing a hot, salty path down my cheek. It burned.
“Why don’t you tell me instead,” I rasped, “why every time I’m in trouble, it’s you who shows up?”
I ignored the bite of pain still searing through my palm as I tried to loosen the headstrong vines winding around my wrists like shackles. Every movement sent thorns dragging across torn skin, but I kept pulling anyway.
“Call it good luck,” he said lightly, clearly savouring the moment.
I forced a smile. It was anything but that.
Preston stepped closer, the glint of the knife catching faint light as he knelt. He let the blade rest against the vine coiled tight around my thigh, just above the knee. I went still, tension slicing through me sharper than any thorn. My skin flushed with heat, the ache of the vines almost forgotten as the air stirred around us, forcing the sweet, earthy mix of evergreen and paper of his scent down my lungs.
“Is it still about your mother, poison?”
The wind hissed like it wanted a word too.
“I told you already,” I gritted, my throat dry.
“But did you really?” he murmured, dragging the knife higher. “Out here? In the woods?” Then, with a swift, precise movement, he cut the first Thorny Creeper.
It snapped apart with a satisfying rip, and the pressure on my thigh released instantly. A gasp escaped my lips as blood rushed back beneath my skin. I hadn’t even realized how tight it was, how much it had hurt until it was gone.
Preston’s dark green gaze met mine, deep and unnerving, then almost soft, like he couldn’t quite decide whether to be cruel or not.
And then he stepped back, just out of reach.
A slow smile tugged at his mouth, wicked and knowing.
Prick.
He was toying with me.
“I can help you,” he mused, his voice a velvet thread weaving through the crisp air. He leaned lazily against a gnarled oak, gaze flicking to my knife in his grasp. With deliberate care, he traced the carvings on the hilt—the small birds flying, the flowers caught in eternal bloom, and the butterflies. I could draw them from memory. His lips curled into a half-smile, the kind that never reached his eyes. “But only if you’re willing to barter for the truth.”
I swallowed harshly, casting my gaze toward the sky. The grey-blue was already inked by shadows. Just how long was I out here? Time seemed to slip by faster at Thornhill, and even I didn’t want to be left vulnerable out here at night. Especially not when I remembered Lilian's story of the woman who walked into these woods and was never seen again.
But it wasn’t just that. It was the throbbing fire in my wrists, the slow trickle of blood beneath my sleeves, the way the thorns had begun to feel like they were part of me now, threaded into my skin.
“Why do you even care?” I asked, still twisting against the vines, now at least free of one.
His brows twitched, surprised by the question, but the moment passed quickly. “I’ve got my reasons,” he said simply.
I blew out a slow breath, letting the fight drain from my shoulders. The vines were winning, my wrists felt like they were being chewed open. He had my knife. And the sky was turning.
“I was looking for a book,” I muttered through my teeth. “Tome of Fates.”
