Drawing deep, I catch a hint ofher.
A breath shudders free, as though some great beast inside my chest just settled into a satiated coil, and I follow the trail, expecting her to lure me on another hunt through the city. I frown when I round a cart selling frosted dough balls to find her bunched on shallow steps that lead to the mail tree, seemingly watching a one-legged busker carve a tune from his fiddle.
Her arms are wrapped around her knees, cap pitched so low all I can see is the tip of her freckle-dusted nose, the slant of her rose-petal lips … the slightest tremble to her chin that makes the binds on my skin gnaw.
I brush my hand against the cart, then circle, lurking from shadow to shadow, stalking every breath, every bump of her knee or tap of her foot, every pulsing flutter down the side of her neck—devouring her like the monster I am.
So fucking selfish.
I move up the stairs, drag my fingers across the stone gate behind her, then step so close I could crouch down, weave my arm around her waist, and crush her against my chest. I could dip my head into her neck and fill my aching lungs ...
No.
I wrestle the pouncing urge and force myself back—down a step, another—until I’m easing between two lofty buildings a few long paces from where she’s sitting. An alleyway so tall and long, barely any light from the overhead streetlamps makes it down into its damp clutches.
Leaning against the cobbled wall, I survey the crowd bustling beneath the clawed reach of the mail tree. Watch them veer around Orlaith as though they’re afraid they’ll fall into her—whether they realize it or not.
A tear slides down her cheek, drips off the edge of her jaw.
I trace its trail …
Can she feel it? Does it cut like a blade? Caress like the breeze? Does she feel haunted, like she’s haunting me?
Another tear.
Don’t cry.
A fish-laden cart ambles between us, and I arch to the left—carving into the time she’s cut from my sight—only to see the step empty. Like she just evaporated into thin air.
“Fuck,” I mutter, about to shove forward when the stamp of a cool blade settles upon my throat.
A small warmth presses against my back and tames my rioting heart.
There she is.
The smell of amber and wildflowers wraps around me in the way her body does not, and I smile despite myself. “Hello, Milaje.”
Silence. Not even a breath.
She steps closer, pushes that bladedeeper.
“Careful. The sword you’re flattened against is sharp.”
“So is mine,” is her rasped response—three words that temper my wild and narrow my attention on the weapon poised at my throat.
I reach up, thread my fingers around her wrist, thumb brushing the spot where I’ve seen the bitten scar that I’m almost certain she made herself. “I can see that.”
Gentle.
Don’t scare her off.
“How did you make so much progress?”
“I did all the breaking at once,” she snaps, the words pattered blows between my shoulder blades. “You’re in the wrong place.”
Wasting precious time.
Her thought comes to me like smoke on the wind.
