“Fine.” I cover her hand with mine. “But you follow my lead. When I say move, you move. When I say run, you run. No arguments, no heroics, no standing between me and whatever that weapon is.”
“I make no promises about the heroics.”
“Xela.”
“But I’ll try.” She squeezes my arm, then releases it. “Now let’s go figure out what’s scary enough to frighten a murder forest.”
We climb out of the hollow and into the darkness above. The forest has changed while we sheltered—the air is thick with tension, the trees leaning inward like they’re trying to hide. Even the ever-present creaking of living wood has gone quiet.
Briargrave is holding its breath.
And in the distance, through the network of roots that connects me to every corner of this ancient, hungry place, I feel the Consortium coming. Bringing death. Bringing fire.
Bringing a weapon that makes even the Thorn King afraid.
Whatever happens next, nothing will be the same.
THIRTY-ONE
XELA
Dawn comes gray and cold.
I wake slowly, wrapped in warmth I don’t deserve. Tharos’s body curves around mine, his arms holding me against his chest, his breath stirring the hair at my temple. His heartbeat is steady and slow against my back—a rhythm I’ve been unconsciously matching in my sleep.
For a moment, I don’t move. Just breathe. Feel the impossible heat of him, the solid mass of muscle and scar that’s become familiar in ways I never expected. His skin is warmer than a human’s, that orc furnace metabolism that’s kept me from shivering through the night.
We found another hollow after leaving the first one. Smaller, cramped, barely enough room to sit upright. But the forest’s fear had spread everywhere, and Tharos said we needed to rest while we could. That we’d need our strength for what was coming.
I hadn’t argued. Hadn’t even protested when he’d pulled me against him and wrapped us both in his worn cloak. I’d just... let it happen. Let myself be held in a way I haven’t been held in years.
Now his arm is heavy across my waist. His breath is warm on my neck. And I should be planning—should be calculating routesand options and contingencies—but all I can think about is how right this feels. How dangerous that feeling is.
“You’re thinking too loud.” His voice is a rumble against my shoulder, rough with sleep. “I can feel it.”
“Through the earth?” I don’t turn. Not yet. I want to hold onto this moment just a little longer.
“Through your body. You’re tense. Wound tight as a crossbow.” His arm tightens around me, pulling me closer. “What’s bothering you?”
Everything. Nothing. The fact that I’m lying in a pit beneath a carnivorous forest wrapped around a man I was hired to kill, and the only thing I want is for this to never end.
I turn in his arms, face him in the gray half-light filtering through cracks in the roots above. His face is softer in sleep—or near-sleep—those amber eyes heavy-lidded and warm. The harsh lines of his jaw are still there, the tusks still worn uneven, but there’s a vulnerability I haven’t seen before. An openness.
“I’m thinking about how stupid this is.” The admission slips out unbidden.
“Which part?”
The air between us shifts. Charges. My chest is against his, my leg thrown over his hip, his hand at my neck. The thin layer of clothing between us feels like nothing at all.
Yesterday was desperation. The kiss in the first hollow was violence transformed—the need to feel alive after nearly dying, to grab onto anything real in a place that wants to swallow us both.
This is different.
This is choice.
I lean forward and press my lips to his. Soft. Questioning. So different from the hunger of before. He responds in kind, his mouth moving against mine with a gentleness that makes my chest ache.
My hands find his chest. The bark-scars are rough under my palms, ridged and textured in ways that shouldn’t feel good but do. I trace them with my fingertips, feeling the edges where normal skin gives way to the marks of his binding. He shivers.
