Chapter 12 #2
I rip the hood back, exposing his face to the moonlight.
It’s Kek, one of my father’s lapdogs. He’s young and untrained and clearly sent to his death without knowing.
Fresh out of training, probably told this was an honor, a chance to prove himself.
My father’s favorite kind of pawn, expendable and eager.
“Didn’t keep it far enough, did you?” I tsk, pressing the blade a fraction deeper.
“I wasn’t going to hurt her—” His eyes are wide, pleading, genuine in his fear.
“No,” I whisper, shushing him like I might a frightened child, “but you were going to watch. Maybe report back to my father.” My free hand grips his jaw, forcing him to look at me. “Tell me what he wants to know.”
He gulps, eyes wide with the sudden understanding that he might not leave these woods alive. “I swear—”
“Following my father’s orders will get you killed.” My voice is soft, almost gentle. A kindness before the end.
“What do you—?”
My blade slices clean across his throat, before he can finish.
I watch the panic in his eyes as he chokes on his own blood, the awful gurgle as air mixes with the crimson tide.
Seeing death is a way of life for me, it’s a shame, Kek had promise, but no one deserves my pity when they follow my father blindly.
His death was sealed the moment he accepted this mission.
Keeping him alive was never an option. I close his eyes, giving him at least that courtesy as his blood seeps into the forest floor like an offering. The moss beneath him already darkens, greedily absorbing his life essence. Kasamere takes what it is given.
I don’t hesitate. I drag the body into the nearest hedgerow, where the forest reaches up, vines wrapping around his body and pulls him under with an almost audible sigh of satisfaction.
Kasamere has a way of disposing of the unwanted body, of making flesh and bone disappear into its endless hunger.
I don’t thank it, I paid in his blood. I just wipe my blade on my pants and disappear into the trees, moving silently now, checking for any companions Kek might have brought along.
A heartbeat later, something stirs. From the soil where his blood soaked deepest, a strange black stalk pushes upward, thin at first, then thickening with a wet, snapping sound.
It blooms wide and fast, a sharp-petaled flower the color of oil and rust. It’s not beautiful.
It’s not a symbol of grief or mourning for the blood spilt.
No, this is a watchful gift. The forest doesn’t just devour. It remembers.
By the time I make it back to the fire, the others are still talking softly.
Rue sees me first, eyes narrowing, mouth twitching like he wants to ask something but knows better.
I’m sure he sees my recent kill written all over my face.
He knows me that well, can read the subtle signs of death in the set of my shoulders, the coldness in my eyes.
Esme looks up. Her gaze lingers on me, searching, but I say nothing. She will find nothing in my face but cold steely resolve. I’ve locked away anything else, buried it beneath duty and discipline.
I sit beside Rue and let the fire paint flickers across my armor, the dancing light making the metal seem alive. The blood beneath my fingernails has dried to black.
I keep my eyes away from hers, I can’t afford softness. I can’t afford her light.
I have to remain cold from now on. If I let her thaw me, she dies. So, I’ll remain frozen and steadfast in my promise to keep her alive. Even if that means freezing my own heart in the process.
The night whispers secrets across the ruins of the once-great fortress, and I stalk its perimeter like the predator.
Death still lingers on my hands, though I’ve washed Kek’s blood away in a nearby stream, scrubbing until my skin was raw.
His face haunts me, not from guilt, but from the certainty that he won’t be the last of my father’s men I’ll need to put down.
My father doesn’t surrender his prizes easily, and he’ll send more, better trained, better hidden, more dangerous.
“Your brooding is particularly magnificent tonight,” Rue calls from where he lounges against a fallen column, one leg extended, the other bent at the knee.
He looks utterly relaxed, but I know his daggers are within easy reach.
“Did someone piss in your wine, or is this just your natural state these days?”
I grunt, refusing to give him the satisfaction of a proper response.
My eyes scan the tree line, searching for any sign that Kek wasn’t alone once more.
You can never be too sure. The luminous fungi clinging to the ancient stones casts an eerie blue glow across the ruins, turning shadows into potential threats, making every movement of branch or leaf suspect.
“The silent treatment? How original.” Rue sighs dramatically, flinging an arm across his forehead like a swooning courtier.
“I’ll just assume it’s about our lovely princess, then.
The way you two orbit each other like twin moons is positively tragic.
All that unresolved tension, it’s enough to make a romantic weep. ”
“Shut up!” I finally snap, rounding on him, patience worn thin by his needling. “Not everything is about—”
My words die as Esme emerges from the inner ruins she retreated to earlier for privacy.
Even in the darkness she glows. Something catches in my chest like a thorn.
Something that makes breathing difficult, as if the air itself refuses to enter my lungs in her presence.
She’s changed into loose sleeping clothes, but she moves with the same fluid grace that makes my skin burn, that makes me ache in places I’ve spent centuries keeping numb.
Sam hovers behind her like a shadow, his large frame awkward against the delicate fae architecture, too solid, too mortal for the ethereal setting.
His presence grates against my senses, a reminder that whatever pull I feel toward Esme means nothing.
She’s bonded to him, mated in ways that transcends the politics of our world.
Bound by forces older than my jealousy, stronger than my longing.
“We should move at first light,” I announce, forcing my eyes away from her, focusing instead on something in the distance. “There are patrols in the western quadrant. I’d rather not risk an encounter.” My voice is all business, cold and precise as a blade.
Rue snorts, a knowing gleam in his eyes. “By ‘patrols’, do you mean the one you just gutted and fed to the forest? The one whose blood still stains your left boot, if anyone’s looking closely?”
Esme’s head snaps up, her strange, mirrorlike eyes finding mine with unerring accuracy. “What is he talking about?” Her voice is steady, but there’s an edge to it, not fear, but something sharper. Concern, perhaps, or disappointment.
“One of my father’s scouts,” I say flatly, refusing to soften the truth. She deserves at least honesty, if nothing else. “He won’t be reporting back.”
Sam growls low in his throat, stepping closer to Esme, a protective hand coming to rest at the small of her back. “You didn’t think to mention this? We could all be in danger.” His eyes flash with anger.
“If there was danger, wolf, you’d be dead already.” I bare my teeth in what could generously be called a smile, though it contains no warmth. “I handled it.”
“By ‘handled’, you mean murdered,” Sam spits, his own teeth showing in a grimace of disgust.
“I mean I protected her!” I snarl back, the words hanging in the air like something heavier than they should be. A truth I hadn’t meant to reveal so plainly. It’s there now, impossible to take back, a declaration of intent neither of us can ignore.
Esme steps between us, one hand on Sam’s chest, the other reaching toward me but stopping short, hovering in the space between us like a broken promise. “That’s enough. Both of you.” Her gaze settles on me, unflinching. “Was he alone?”
“Yes.” I meet her eyes, challenging her to question me further, to doubt my assessment. “For now.” The threat hangs in the air, unspoken but understood. My father isn’t finished with us.
Rue claps his hands together, the sound echoing unnaturally through the ruins, startling a nest of nocturnal birds into flight.
“Well! This is all delightfully tense. While you three sort out your complicated little triangle, I’ll be taking first watch.
” He saunters past me, patting my shoulder with infuriating familiarity.
“Try not to kill each other, or fuck. Actually, I don’t care which, just keep it quiet. ”
“Rue,” I warn, but he’s already disappeared into the shadows, his laughter trailing behind him like a ribbon of sound, mocking and affectionate all at once.
Sam glares at me, eyes filled with a mixture of hostility and grudging acknowledgment. Then he turns to Esme, his expression softening immediately. “We should rest. We have a long journey ahead.”
She nods, but her eyes linger on me, searching for something I can’t, won’t, give her. “Locke—”
“Go with your mate,” I cut her off, my voice like ice, like the frozen wasteland I pretend to be. “I’ll relieve Rue in a few hours.”
I turn away before I can see the hurt in her eyes, before I can witness the damage my coldness inflicts. It’s better this way, better that she hate me, better that she believes I’m nothing but her cold, dutiful escort. The alternative is far more dangerous. For both of us.
I retreat to the far edge of the courtyard, claiming a spot beneath a half-collapsed archway.
From here, I can see the entire camp and still keep an eye on the forest beyond, where shadows move with purpose and the trees themselves seem to lean in, listening.
The moss beneath me is damp, soaking through my leathers, but I’ve endured worse discomforts.
This chill is nothing compared to the cold I cultivate within.