I stumble over a log that almost cuts my feet out from under me, his admission turning my insides all warm and swirly.
Good things I don’t deserve to feel.
“Though she’s a literal pain in my chest,” he tacks on, and my gaze drops to the red, risen scar on his pectoral.
The scarImade.
Another cluster of vines pack amidst my insides, cramming me so full I can hardly breathe for fear of thorns piercing my skin.
Poking through from the inside out.
I almost trip again—something I can’t afford right now. I’m certain that if I crumble all the way to the ground, he’ll crush me like a stampeding herd.
“Cainon said—”
“I don’t give afuckwhat Cainon said, Orlaith. You listened. Youbelieved,” he grinds out, his words stone barbs lobbed straight at my gut. “You disappointed me.”
My heart dives into an acidic pit of guilt, and I waver, forced to slam my hand against a trunk to steady myself. He doesn’t slow his prowling advance, like a shadow chasing its captor.
I clamber into action again, whimpering, my pulse whooshing in my ears. “He showed me an abandoned burrow—”
“Hisfather’sburrow. The one I extracted Baze from years ago.”
I stumble on nothing but my own naïvety, remembering Baze’s scars.
Calah made them…
Recalling the conflict in Baze’s eyes after he stabbed Calah through the chest, it all slots into place like razor blades.
I blink, tears shredding down my cheeks, face twisting, eyes narrowed on the mighty shadow stalking my every step. “This is what happens when you keep so manysecrets,Rhordyn! People get stabbed!”
His upper lip peels back, a darkness falling upon us, like all the light just got sucked out of the atmosphere. Big, heavy raindrops begin to fall through the canopy and patter upon the underbush.
“Don’t lecture me onsecrets,” he says past lengthening canines. “You’re riddled with them. I can smell them on that bandage.” He points at my throat, making my cheeks burn, and I slap a hand up to smother the shame. “Thathand. Even your fuckingtearsreek of them. But don’t worry.” He waves the talon at me. “I’m not about to stickthisthrough your chest because of it.”
Another slash to the heart, struck with such precision while I scramble along physically.
Mentally.
Emotionally.
“You told me you were going to show me your worst and—”
“You stabbed me in the heart.”
“You said I missed!”
“You did,” he snips as I clamber backward over a fallen tree. He steps over it like it’s a twig he could crush with his bare fist.
“What is it, then?” my curiosity plies, the rainfall growing heavier, plastering my hair to my cheeks. “Your worst?”
“You can’t handle my worst. You stabbed me in the heart. Bymistake.Because Cainon told you to.”
“I thought you had your own burrow beneath Castle Noir! I thought you put my people in chains and cages!”
He shakes his head; a single slice to the side. “Never once. Though I might re-evaluate my morals if you keep trying to die.”
I flinch all the way to the marrow—stripped bare.
