Page 67
“Kieran!” I push off the tree, and my legs nearly give out. “What are you—”
A pair of wolves breaks from the undergrowth to our left, and Kieran sends a column of fire after them that tears through the trees and catches both animals mid-stride. They go down screaming, the sound of it hitting me in the chest with a physical force that makes my stomach lurch.
“They’ve been watching us since we entered.” His voice is flat, his eyes burning amber. “Every one of them is a threat.”
“They’re not attacking.” I’m stumbling toward him, and the heat rolling off his body stings my skin from ten feet away. “They’re running away from you.”
But he’s already moving toward another cluster of thermal signatures, a fire blade forming in each fist. His stance is low and hunting, his expression twisted in fury. It’s a look I’ve never seen from him before, and I can’t help but take a few steps back, until my back hits the tree again.
In the Scorched Circles, Kieran’s violence is precise. Controlled. Elegant, even. This is feral. This is a man whose fire just killed a dangerous mythological creature, and the power liked it and wants more, whether the creatures are threats or not.
A fox darts across the path, and Kieran’s blade catches it. The small body burns before it hits the ground. Birds scatter from a low branch, and fire chases them through the canopy. Two of them fall in flaming arcs that leave trails of smoke against the silver light.
The horror of what I’m watching is so complete that my depleted magic surges against my empty reserves.
“Stop!” I’m running now, although I don’t get too close, a part of me afraid of being his next victim. “Kieran, you have to stop. These are Artemis’s creatures. This is her sacred forest, and you’re slaughtering—“
He sends fire into the trees to our right. More creatures flee. The sacred forest of Artemis is filling with the smell of burning fur, and the shrieks of animals that committed no offense except existing in the same woodland as a son of Ares echo through the air.
“The boar was a test.” Kieran turns toward a wolf howl in the distance, and new blades—bigger blades—form in his fists. “If there’s one test, there are more. None of them are safe.”
“You’re the one who isn’t safe!”
A wounded doe is limping across the path ahead of us, and I’m running, placing myself between Kieran and the helpless animal. My arms are spread wide, and the heat rolling off Kieran’s body slams into me with a force that makes my eyes water.
His fire blade is arcing through the air toward the doe, which means it’s arcing toward me too, and I see it coming, and I don’t move. Patterns have shown that hurting me is the one thing that snaps Kieran out of his war-blood rage, and if that means putting myself in the path of his blade, then that’s exactly what I’m going to do.
Because I trust him. I know deep in my bones that Kieran Cross would rather die than hurt me, and as crazy as it is, I’m betting my life on the fact that for whatever reason, I matter to him.
Glowing amber eyes meet mine, and his body locks, his blade stopping six inches from my face. Heat sears across my cheek, the divine fire so close to my skin that the tears on my cheeks evaporate on contact.
But the blade stopped. Kieran’s arm is rigid in the air, his fist clenched around the fire sword’s hilt, his body trembling with the effort of holding still. His eyes are blazing amber. The war-blood is written across every line of his face in a way that makes him look like a stranger, but I haven’t given up on him yet, and I don’t intend on starting now.
“Every creature you want to kill from this point on, you go through me first.” My voice is shaking, my arms are spread, and the doe is limping away behind me. And even as his fire flares hotter, I fight through the pain and don’t budge.
The fire blade flickers in his fist. His arm is still raised, and the trembling is getting worse, the war glow in his eyes pulsing between bright and dim. It’s like two versions of Kieran are fighting for the same body, and as much as I hate it, I’m afraid that eventually, the side that matters most to me will lose.
“I know you’re in there.” I lower my arms and take a step toward him, even though his heat is pressing against my skin hard enough to sizzle. “You carried me off the Crown when I couldn’t stand. You put a dagger in my hand and told me to feel how the fire moved through it instead of letting me fail. You told me about Liora, and a nightclub, and a birthday you never wanted to celebrate. That wasn’t the war-blood talking. It was you.”
His amber eyes stay locked on mine, and even as the fire on his arms keeps crackling, the blade in his raised fist is starting to gutter out.
I need to keep going. It might be the only way to stop him from losing control again, and if that happens, I’m terrified he’ll be gone for good.
“You caught me midair on a ship in a storm and held me against a wall like I was the only thing worth saving.” I hold my gaze with his, refusing to break it. “That was you, too.”
The blade dissolves, and his arm lowers to his side one slow inch at a time, as if the war-blood is fighting him for every one of them.
A wave of confidence passes through me, and I take another step forward. We’re close enough that his heat is pressing against my entire body, and even though my skin is flushed and stinging, I reach out and put my hand on his chest anyway.
The divine heat of his fire bites into my palm, but I hold on, watching the green in his eyes push through the amber. As it spreads, the fire crawling across his arms dims from white-gold, to orange, to a flickering glow. His breathing follows, the ragged, sharp pulls deepening into long shudders, until the last of the amber drains from his eyes and it’s Kieran I’m looking at instead of a volatile demigod of war.
His eyes—fully green now—widen in horror, fixed on my face with an expression that makes my chest split open. The fire on his arms goes out, the heat against my palm easing from scorching to merely hot. Around us, the forest quiets as the smoke clears and the silver light returns. Finally, all that’s left is Kieran, standing in front of me with empty hands, dead animals on the ground behind him, and my palm flat against his heart.
“Evie,” he says, barely able to get the word out. “I—”
“You stopped.” I press my hand harder against his chest, his heartbeat slamming under my fingers. “You saw me, and you heard me, and you stopped.”
His hand comes up and covers mine, his grip shaking. The man underneath my palm is so far from the war god who was burning the forest thirty seconds ago that the contrast makes my eyes sting.
