Chapter 15
Water explodes up the tunnel, sloshes around our feet, then seeps back down the stairs as Raeve slips my hold and pins me against the wall with a dragonscale blade notched against my throat. My dragonscale blade.
One I remember shaping phases ago from one of Rygun’s scales.
She pushes close, gets in my face, and snarls—pupils blown, canines bared, trembling despite her savage stance. Blood streaks from her eyes, nose, and ears. From the deep gash across her cheek.
Too fast.
Had she not whipped her head back in time—
I fist my hands and stretch my shredded knuckles, fighting the urge to stuff my fingers in the ground and rip the world in two.
Using every bit of my self-control not to thread my arms around her waist. To flatten my palm against her back and eliminate the remaining space between us, press my nose into her nape, and breathe her—eyes squeezed shut while I let her heartbeat dull the residual ache in my chest from seeing her tread so close to death.
Pyrok clears his throat.
I risk a glance at him, then down at Roan slouched against the wall on the stairs at his feet, both gaping.
Pale.
They’re worried. I’m not. The blade at my throat is more a compliment than anything.
Raeve dug deep to speak with Rayne. She’s hurting, and she’s turned that hurt into rage I’ll gladly consume.
“Pyrok, escort your brother up the stairs.” Slowly, I reach into the pocket of my cloak and pull out the bloody key I sliced off somebody’s hand for, holding Raeve’s stare as I pass it over with Roan’s damaged spectacles I collected from the trial.
“I’m sure he’ll appreciate a rundown while you release him from his shackles. ”
“Indeed,” Roan drudges past a wince, then tenderly pushes to his feet and begins hobbling up the stairs.
Pyrok offers a steadying hand but doesn’t move from the step he’s on.
“Now. And keep an eye out for more guards. If we’re to make it out of the Citadel without further implications, our presence must remain a secret.”
“Not sure you’re aware, but it appears as though you’re about to have your throat sli—”
“She’s not going to hurt me,” I murmur. Softer than Raeve’s snarls sawing against my skin.
Aside from the slightest twitch of her lips, she maintains her stance as Pyrok clicks his tongue, passes me another worried glance, then helps his brother up the twisting stairway—their footsteps echoing off the tunnel’s smooth walls.
All the while, I study her. The arched slope of her brows, eyes like fossilized Moonplume flame. Her lips … plump and red as the blood weeping down her cheeks.
Her skin is so pale in the dull light, hair piled high, wet bits hanging about her face, making my fingers itch to brush away the strands. To touch her.
It’s a slow, gentle perusal. Each sweep of my gaze a quiet reminder that she survived.
“You could blind me right now and I’d die happy …”
I barely realize I’ve spoken until she swallows. Something that makes my hand twitch with the urge to reach up and brush the column of her throat. Her jaw. To trace around the nape of her neck and thread my fingers through her hair—
“You asked me to come back to you,” she bites back, like a toss of icy water—reminding me of the anger sizzling through my own veins. So easy to forget when I’m looking at her.
Standing so close to her.
Pulling her butterberry scent into my lungs.
“Ever hopeful. Until my final breath.”
“The statement insinuated there would be a you to come back to.”
I tilt my head, trusting her to shift the blade lest she cut my throat clean open. “Decided to care, Moonbeam?”
Another snarl as she shoves back, clefting too much space between us. I glimpse something silver tangled around her hand and wrist … sort of. Barely visible, but there.
Parting her cloak, she kicks her leg forward. Stuffs the blade back in her sheath packed full of many more dragonscale blades. All fashioned from Rygun’s scales.
All mine.
I lift a brow, leaning into the punch of pride that strikes my chest. “Nice armory.”
She dashes the cloak back over her leg, swipes the blood and tears off her cheeks, then crosses her arms.
“Take it they came in handy?”
“Rekk’s dead, if that’s what you’re asking. His remains are somewhere at the bottom of that Creators-cursed lake.”
I catch her hand movements despite them being tucked away.
Still itching. Still bloodlusting.
Which means killing Rekk didn’t shake it from her system. It’s tethered to somebody else.
My heart sinks so fast my knees almost give way.
“Good,” I rasp, then clear my throat.
Gather myself.
She jerks her chin at my hands. “Why are you bleeding?”
I stretch my fingers and glance down, getting a good look at the gory damage. “Breaking the pier was the only way to get you up and out the exit.”
Something I hope doesn’t swing around and bite us, given I had to pull from Rygun’s strength. Had to momentarily open myself to him to do so, voiding my emotions in hopes of avoiding a flaming rampage from my overprotective beast.
Her brow almost arches off her face. “You broke the pier with your fists?”
“With Rygun’s help.” I fold my arms, hiding my bloody hands. “How is it that you can hear the Creators down here?”
“No idea.”
“You spoke with Rayne—”
“Never again.”
I suck air through my teeth. “There are those sky-high walls I so love to bash myself against. Utris?”
“Accounted for.”
“Did you get my lark?”
“Yes.”
“Verdict?”
She lifts her chin. “I’ll see out the moonfalls at your mah’s retreat, but I have a condition.”
Relief like I’ve never felt floods my chest. “I’m listening …”
“You’re there, too.”
For a moment, all I can do is stare—unbreathing.
Unmoving.
I wish I could reach forward and kiss her, slow and without urgency. Feast on that small, powerful sentence for eternity.
Except—
“I have a kingdom to serve, Moonbeam …”
“A kingdom you’ll continue to serve after the falls because you’ll be alive. Because I’ll keep you alive.”
My smile is just as soft as my rapidly beating heart. “Light of my life, you did decide to care.”
“Screw you,” she snaps, and my smile grows.
“Please. You won’t hear a word of complaint from me.”
Her breath hitches, lips parting as her eyes blaze, cheeks reddening in a way that makes my blood turn molten. She swallows, clears her throat, then says, “Tempting as it is, fucking you makes me stupid. I need my wits about me if I’m to keep your heart beating.”
She thinks I need protection? Pretty rich from someone who’s already died once. Not to mention her numerous near-death experiences since.
My laugh is a mirthless roll, hands threading through my hair to distract them from reaching forward, grabbing her by the shoulders, and either shaking her or kissing her. “If only you weren’t blind to the irony.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I just watched you offer yourself as bait,” I grind out, feeling Rygun’s flame licking at the underside of my skin again.
Like that small part of him that never leaves me—the gift that bound us as one—wants to show her exactly how well we can look after ourselves.
“Though I may seem relaxed, I feel it’s important to say I’m straddling a fine line between maintaining my composure and losing my ever-loving mind. ”
Her gaze hardens. “How do you think I felt watching you row straight for a fucking anthe—”
“If you two are done bickering, we have a rapidly evolving problem up here,” Pyrok calls down from farther up the stairway, his voice oddly strained.
I sigh.
Way I see it, we have many rapidly evolving problems. Like all the moons about to shake from the sky.
That, and I haven’t heard from my sister in cycles, Raeve’s still bloodlusting, and above all, she doesn’t know she has a daughter.
Or a kingdom. Or that her entire family was poisoned to death by my deceased pah.
“We can finish this later,” I murmur, gesturing for Raeve to move up the stairway first.
She frowns, mimicking me. Standing her ground.
I grind my back molars.
Creators, give me strength not to toss her over my shoulder and carry her there myself.
“I’m not moving up those stairs before you, Raeve. Not after everything I just witnessed. I will watch you walk away from this alive. So please,” I growl, gesturing again, “be my guest.”
She opens her mouth, snaps it shut. Something flickers in her eyes before she clears her throat and stalks up the stairs.
I don’t celebrate the win despite knowing it’ll probably be the last I have for a very long while.
Pretty sure that’s exactly why she gave it to me.