His breath stills, and so does mine. The pull is magnetic, inescapable. His eyes drop to my lips as he leans in closer. Heat arcs between us, sharp as a struck chord. Waiting. The moment stretches—intense, fragile, trembling.
I turn my head abruptly and rise.
And the spell breaks.
“I have to go,” I say, too quickly. My heart thuds against my ribs like it’s trying to escape.
Gavrail doesn’t stop me. He just nods slowly, his expression once again shuttered, but his eyes still give him away.
I step off the rock and into the frost-scored sand below, keeping my back to him because I don’t trust myself to look at him.
“I’m with Noa,” I say, my voice barely above a whisper.
“I know” is all he says. But it sounds like he’s swallowing a thousand other words.
I walk away, but the lake sings louder now.
And I don’t know if it’s remembering for me… or warning me.
CHAPTER 31
There are bonds forged in battle—and others in instinct. The latter are far more dangerous, for they are chosen before the mind can refuse them.
—Discipline of the Blade and the Void, Vikhrostrum required text
GAVRAIL
Iwatch her for a while, standing at the edge of the half-frozen lake. After the duel at the Grotto, after what happened, I knew where to find her. I always do.
Because some part of me—buried deep beneath all that discipline and distance—still moves in time with her. Whether I want to or not.
I’m calm now, after the adrenaline that pulsed through me in the cave. The fear that took over when that ice dagger flew straight for her throat.
Instinct. Possession. Panic. Call it whatever you want.
I threw my shadows without thinking. A stupid choice. Not the cold, calculated strategy I’m known for. I didn’t plan it. Inever plan when it comes to her. And that’s the fucking problem. She makes me reckless. She makes me want to bleed. And it nearly exposed us both.
And when her water slammed into my dark—when it fused, becoming something else entirely, it was like… something ancient inside me lifted its head and said,There you are.
I’ve slept with women. Bled with men. I’ve fought until my hands shook and my vision went white. None of that touched what this felt like.
It wasintimatein a way that made sex look like a fucking handshake. It burned through everything I had locked away. Memories of her. By the lake, in the forest, in my room, on her bed, the night that we…
No. I need to stop thinking of that. It will only get me into trouble. But it plays like a godsdamn broken record in my mind every time my head hits the pillow.
Sharing magick with Celeste awakened something no one else has even brushed. Something deep. Reverberating in my chest, in my very bones.
If I’m being honest, it terrifies me. But not because I can’t handle it.
I threw up the wall of shadow to bury the proof. To keep the crowd from seeing what happened. To keep her safe from questions. And for one half-breath I was ready to pull her into my darkness where no one else could find her. Where no one else could touch her. Keep her there until she remembered exactly what we were together.
Buthegot there first.
Noa.
Like a golden fucking fire god.
His hands wrapped around her like she belonged to him.
