Chapter 21
Every step closer to their small camp felt more impossible than the last.
Trudging along, limbs stiff with pain, Lunara would have sworn to the Sisters that her feet were made of stone. Even her eyelids felt too heavy to lift after each traitorous blink.
When she reached the cold fire pit and fell onto one of the earthen platforms Brand had made, she nearly sobbed with relief. Hedda’s low chuckle raised Lunara’s hackles, but the Demon was forgiven the second she laid flint to wood and brought blessed warmth to the situation.
Eyes closed, Lunara fought sleep while she listened to the low rumblings of the others’ voices, trying to muster the energy to summon her flask—assuming there was any blood left in it.
A sudden chill accompanied the disappearance of the fire’s light behind her lids, but Lunara was too damned tired to scream. Instead, she hissed, “Whoever you are, I swear to the Sisters that I will turn you into something hideous if you don’t move in the next two seconds.”
Brand’s answering chuckle was the only warning before Lunara was being scooped up and pressed to his chest.
She flailed, prying her eyes open. Even this close, he was nothing more than a black silhouette surrounded by orange flames.
“What are you doing?”
“I thought you might be hungry, even tired as you are,” he said softly. “And I thought you’d prefer to be clean when you eat.”
He crossed the camp, ignoring her struggles, and walked them deeper into the trees. Her body was at war with itself, wanting everything he promised but still incensed with this repeat of his earlier actions.
“Brand, put me down,” she said through her teeth.
“You don’t want to wash?”
“I don’t want to be hauled around and forced to wash.” She pushed against his unforgiving chest. “Just like I didn’t want to be forced into speaking plainly earlier.”
His head jerked back as if she’d slapped him. “Forced?”
He said it like it was ridiculous.
“Blessed moons, Brand. Let go of me!”
He set her feet to the ground and took a step back, obviously at a loss. She ignored the pang of regret in her chest, the chill running along the side of her body that’d been plastered up against him.
“I don’t see the problem,” he said, throwing his hands up. “I was only trying to protect you.”
“I know that, but my life is complicated.” She pinched the bridge of her nose and loosed a sigh. “There are certain things I don’t… I didn’t like it, and that should be enough. Alright?”
Well, aren’t you chatty. Go on, tell him about the Elders while you’re at it.
Sarcasm aside, the temptation was there. Stars above, the words were practically crawling their way up her throat, begging to be free. Just so he would stop looking at her that way.
He won’t save you from them, you know. One word to his brother and you belong to the Council.
The reminder of his status as an Imperial Son drew her up short. It was so easy to forget how far he was above her. That she was in the presence of a creature who could ruin her with a word, a thought.
That you should watch your cursed mouth where he’s concerned.
“I apologize,” he said, his voice curt. “Damned if I understand what it is I’m meant to be sorry for, though.” The last was said under his breath, almost to himself, but she heard it nonetheless.
Arsehole! Never mind. Rant away.
Lunara didn’t need any encouragement.
“You trapped me, Brand, and demanded an explanation in return for my release. Now, I get to eat if I’m clean, and I can only be clean if you drag me around without asking? Once again, you’re holding my freedom against me, and I don’t bleeding appreciate it.”
His eyes widened then dropped away, darting over the leaves littering the forest floor.
She crossed her arms and gave him her back, focusing on the peeling bark of a nearby tree to keep her mind from the pain sparking in every part of her.
The exhaustion. “You should know—I value my freedom above all else. Taking my choices away will not go well with me. Ever. There’s a difference between using your body to protect someone and using it against them because you think you know better. Now do you understand?”
If he didn’t, then Brand was just like him. A monster. The Council’s prized fucking pet. Hateful, cursed—
No, no. Don’t go there. Ignore, ignore, ignore.
She wasn’t sure what she’d do if that was the case.
Disregarding her own obstacles, Lunara would’ve said Brand was everything she could ever want in a male.
Impossibly strong and heartbreakingly gentle in turns.
Beautiful. Kind. She couldn’t keep him if she wanted to protect the autonomy she was so fiercely defending, but she might’ve had him for a little while.
Might’ve stolen the opportunity to make searing memories for the long, lonely nights ahead of her.
He drew closer, his heat preceding his low voice, but she kept her gaze fixed away.
“I see now what you mean. I do. More than you know.” She felt a small tickling at her scalp, as if he was rubbing a lock of her hair between his fingers.
“I saw your face before you ran and I…” He freed an explosive breath, the air sending a shudder through her.
“I panicked. Already, I know you well enough to have realized something was terribly wrong based on that look alone. With everything else, fear seized me and I acted without thought.” His hand landed on her bare shoulder, his thumb tracing a lazy circle there.
“Forgive me, Lunara. It won’t happen again, I swear it. ”
His touch left her as the last word passed his lips, only serving to emphasize the promise he’d just made.
More of an apology than she’d had from anyone in a very long time. The first time in recent memory that she’d been heard and acknowledged.
The creature who’d ruined her life never would have done such a thing.
Stars above, you’re all over the damned place.
She didn’t care. Brand was different.
Lunara whipped around. “Brand, I—”
Shock rattled every one of her nerve endings. Ripped all thought from her head.
Brand stood in a glaring beam of moonlight, towering over her.
Blood and gore covered his clothes head-to-toe in dry, flaking streaks of black and brown, made worse by the way the branches swayed in the breeze and set the shadows to moving.
She refused to identify the different bits and pieces clinging to him.
Her mind wouldn’t accept any of it anyway.
How in the weeping fuck did you not notice that sooner?
The light had been dimming by the time she’d finished with the Fae, gone when she’d finished the burials, but still.
“You’re… filthy,” she said, swallowing her disgust.
His smile was tired, and not in the least bit amused. “I’ve had worse. But, yes, we are filthy.” Brand sighed and gave her a pointed look. “Hence the need to bathe.”
Oh no.
With dreadful realization dawning, Lunara looked down at herself.
Her dress… Her hair…
Blood had dried the lengths into hard clumps, all the way up to her shoulders in some places.
No, no, no, no, no…
“Brand,” she whispered.
A wave of nausea washed over her, and Lunara wanted nothing more than to erase the creeping awareness of what was stuck to her. She stumbled to the side, Brand gripping her arm to—
Images from the past barraged her, laying themselves over reality.
The forest twisted until she was crouched on a ravaged street in the Upper Block of Starkeep.
Suddenly, it wasn’t the dried blood of innocents that covered them, but their own, flowing freely.
Stone crumbled around her, a familiar scream echoing.
A clawed hand was poised in the air above Brand, holding his still-beating heart. Death by the name of Malachyr—
“Lunara?” Brand’s even voice cut through the recollections.
Her legs had turned to jelly, face and fingers numb. All she could do was reach out, hands fumbling for something solid to save her from herself.
Real. He was real. Not the one dying. That was another time. Another night. Other people.
The bastard can’t hurt you anymore. Cordelia promised.
Her eyes were glued to the pulse jumping in Brand’s corded neck, to the proof of life pumping steadily there.
Real. Real. Real.
It wasn’t enough to distract her from the sensation crawling over her skin, the past mixing with the present like a putrid film. Hadn’t Brand said that knowledge wasn’t always helpful? She should’ve shut her mouth and let him take her to the river.
The river.
Yes. There, roaring in the near distance. The instant her ears locked onto the sound, her body was no longer her own.
Lunara shoved past Brand, desperate. For the second time that day, she was sprinting away from him, the rush of water pulling her faster and faster through the trees. She ignored his shouts, heedless of the low branches stretching out like hands to grab her, smack her, claw her.
If she’d been in her right mind, she might’ve just commanded the dead particles away from them and eaten the cost, but she wasn’t and she didn’t.
Because this time, she was running from herself.
From the stain of remembering. From agony that had nothing to do with the price of her power. From facing him in this state and having to explain.
When she broke through the tree line and reached a small clearing, saw the river before her, Lunara had only enough sense left to summon a pile of clean linens to the bank and a bar of soap to her hand before throwing herself into the water—boots and all.
She didn’t notice the iciness of it as she plunged into the pulling current. Nothing mattered but making the stars-forsaken soap lather and raking her nails over every exposed inch.
Get it off. Get it off.
More than anything, she wanted to scrub the memories away.
“Let me.” Her frantic movements were stopped when a pair of hands landed on hers. Brand’s presence loomed behind her, his warmth seeping through the water to comfort her. “Let me help you.”