When I’m in that state—half-shifted, blood-high—I’m a thing most people wouldn’t want near their door. Let alone their bed.
Butshecame back to mine. Again and again.
She lifts her chin. “You didn’t have to tear that last one’s arm off.”
“He stabbed my horse.”
She blinks. Then says, “Fair.”
I bark a laugh, rough and fast. Some of the tension breaks.
The wind shifts. I sniff again, but there’s nothing. Just blood, steel, and her.
Always her.
She steps forward, lays her hand on my chest. “You scared me,” she admits. “But not because of what you did. Because of how easy it was for you.”
I cover her hand with mine. “It’s always been easy.”
She doesn’t pull away. Doesn’t look away either.
“Guess I need to get used to that,” she says.
“Guess you do.”
We stand like that for a long moment—surrounded by bodies, blood drying on our skin, hearts pounding for different reasons.
Then she steps back.
“We should move,” she says. “Before someone checks on them.”
I nod. “You ride. I’ll scout ahead.”
She doesn’t argue.
But as we ride out—fast and quiet—she keeps glancing back at me. Not like she’s afraid I’ll turn on her.
More like she’s trying to understand what it means to walk beside something that can kill so easily.
And what it means that she wants to.
We smellthe smoke before we see the fire.
The scent of Rizzo’s camp clings to the air like old sweat—burned meat, oiled steel, piss, horsehide, and pipe ash. It smells like survival. It smells like home to some of them.
To me, it smells like a grave waiting to be filled.
River rides ahead of me, shoulders squared, jaw tight. She hasn’t said much since the ambush. Doesn’t have to. Her silence says enough—every now and then she shifts in the saddle, like she wants to turn around and check that I’m still behind her, but won’t let herself.
I don’t give her the satisfaction. I stay close. Close enough that if anyone tries to take her from me again, I’ll rip their goddamn face off.
The camp hasn’t changed much since we left. Same patchwork tents, same hammered stakes in the dirt, same cluster of lean, weather-beaten rebels huddled around maps and spitfires, muttering plans like they’re sacred.
But the mood changes the second we ride in.
Eyes snap toward us. Hands drift to weapons. Whispers rise like wind before a storm.
They weren’t expecting us back.
