Chapter 8
In the morning, Naia slid from bed while everyone slept. She stared at Kano until a lump coalesced in her throat, then kissed his forehead and crept from the hut. Halfway down the hill, she encountered a limping, bleeding Elias. He crumpled at her feet. Half his ear had been torn off.
“I tried,” he gasped.
Those barbed bits within her lanced deeper, sharper, brighter. Elias might have tried, but he’d failed—proof that he would never actually see her, with or without her butterflies.
In that moment, the urge to push him down the hill nearly overwhelmed her. But she refrained, wondering if she was just as guilty. Had she ever looked at him before? Truly looked?
Maybe not. If so, she might have done things differently.
Elias fisted her skirts and pressed the crumpled fabric to his forehead. “I’ll try again,” he vowed. “I’ll make you mine or die trying.”
She wanted to kick him away. Instead, she forced her voice not to tremble. “What’s the beast like?”
“Fearsome.” Elias’s eyes rolled. “Crazed. Bloodthirsty. But I’ll face him again. I’ll win you, I swear it. I’ll defeat him, whatever it takes.”
“You know what?” She snatched her skirts from his grip and stepped past. “Don’t bother.”
“Wait,” he wailed. “Where are you going?”
Naia murmured under her breath. “To go defeat him myself.”