Page 40 of On Broken Bonds

She didn't. Everything about her seemed vivid. Bright. As though she experienced every emotion more intensely than the people around her.

Then she'd stepped forward before the gods. Lady Nyx Nocturne. Human. Apparently.

Though I'm still not entirely convinced.

The plant's largest vine whips around and almost catches my shoulder. The impact is hard enough to crack a tree behind me.

Annoying.

I grab the vine before it can retreat and yank. The entire creature lurches sideways.

"Really?" I mutter.

The thing hisses at me. I hiss back. Then I tear the vine off completely.

By every reasonable measure, she should have been forgettable. A noblewoman with no combat training. A human without any unique abilities competing against vampires, shifters, berserkers, warlocks, and whatever other monsters the gods dredged up for their amusement. The sort of woman I'd normally dismiss after a single glance. Instead, she lodged herself somewhere in the back of my mind and refused to leave.

The plant lunges one final time. I step into the attack.

One slash.

Then another.

It moves away, shifting, studying me. Trying to decide my weaknesses. Unfortunately for it, I have none.

Maybe my fascination with her is because she's the only person in this competition who still reacts honestly to things. Every thought seems to cross her face before she can stop it. Curiosity. Fear. Determination. All of it there for anyone paying attention to see.

Or maybe it's because she volunteered for a competition she has absolutely no business surviving. I've always admired a certain kind of recklessness.

Whatever the reason, I keep finding my attention returning to her. Which is an unfortunate development. Especially now.

Turning, I find her standing a few feet away. Her eyes are wide, her breathing quick, and despite everything that happened, she's looking at me as though she's trying to solve a puzzle.

I find that I like the attention more than I should.

It’s a dangerous realization. Particularly when I seem to have just been hacking apart a carnivorous plant the size of a carriage for a woman I barely know. A woman I absolutely should not be interested in.

And yet.

This was not my challenge. It was hers. But when I saw her and knew she was going to die, all logic says I should’ve let it happen. One less team to compete with.

But that’s not what I did. Foolishly.

My gaze moves slowly over her. The leather armor clings to her in ways that should probably be illegal. Her dark hair has mostly escaped whatever attempt was made to tame it, strands sticking to her flushed cheeks. Her hazel eyes are wide as she stares betweenme and the massive flower trying very hard to kill us both. For a woman facing imminent death, she's remarkably distracting.

Rather than giving in to the decidedly unhelpful direction of my thoughts, I shift my grip on my sword and ask, "Did you really think this would be easy?"

She blinks.

Then she gasps and stumbles backward as the plant chooses that exact moment to rear up again.

"Right," I mutter, turning to intercept a thorned tendril aimed at my head.

My blade bites into the vine, and I find myself strangely annoyed that saving her life is interfering with my flirting.

Rather than give into the, frankly, primal urges I’m faced with, I ask, my sword heavy in my hand, “So, you come here often?”

She cries out and points in front of me.