Chapter 25 Bryony
brYONY
THE ROSES ARE HAPPIER.”
I go still at the Wolf’s voice. His scent envelops me, a mix of citrus, evergreen, and magic.
It’s been three days. Three days of him avoiding me. He comes into my room at night, heals my injuries, and leaves. Cold, perfunctory. None of the usual lingering touches with his hands. Not since—
This is killing you, isn’t it? Wanting me?
Gritting my teeth, I sit back on my heels and glare up at him—and immediately wish I hadn’t.
Every day, I forget how beautiful the Wolf is, and every day, I’m slapped in the face with it again.
Dark trousers ride low on his narrow hips.
A tight black shirt strains across his chest, stretching over his broad shoulders and fastening beneath his wings.
His dark hair is mussed, as if he’s just rolled out of bed.
Or tumbled someone in it.
A sour taste fills my mouth at the thought.
In Hellevig, we have a saying: The sweetest poisons come wrapped in honey. I’ve never seen anything embody that warning quite like the male standing before me. Something so beautiful you forget what he really is: a predator.
I swallow hard and force my attention back to the weeds, attacking them with renewed vigor. “Maybe they’re just glad someone is finally paying attention to them. Their neglectful owner has been too busy pretending I don’t exist.”
I’ll bet wanting me eats. You. Alive.
A breeze whips through the garden, sending fallen leaves skittering over the ground. The branches of the towering silverpines creak around us.
Finally, he answers. “I just healed you yesterday, didn’t I? Cracked skull, busted ribs, ruptured spleen. One would think something that traumatic would stick, but maybe you had such a good time you’ve forgotten already. Or do you mean the lack of speaking? Otherwise known as your favorite tactic.”
A thorn bites into my wrist as I reach for another weed, and I hiss out a curse. A thin rivulet of crimson beads up. “You’re the one who likes the sound of your own voice.”
He smiles slowly. “Careful, nemesis. Almost sounds like you missed me.”
Nemesis. That nickname shouldn’t spread heat across my skin, but it does.
I glance away. “Amara will be here any second. I’m sure you have better things to do than supervise.”
“She’s not coming. I’m taking a murder holiday. Specifically to torment the princess who thinks she can cheat a god out of his daggers and get away with it.”
“I didn’t cheat. I outsmarted you. There’s a difference.” I roll my eyes. “If you’re planning to skulk around, you might as well make yourself useful. Bond with your precious roses. Prune something before they stage a coup and strangle us both in our sleep.”
When he doesn’t answer, I make the mistake of looking up again. The Wolf is grinning at me, the kind of grin that makes prey animals run for their lives. The kind that promises beautiful, terrible things.
“You know what?” he says. “I have a better idea.”
Before I can blink, he grabs me around the waist and launches us into the air. The ground falls away with a single powerful beat of his wings.
“Wolf!” I yelp when he veers sharply to the left.
I feel his chest shake with laughter. The bastard is enjoying this.
My stomach lurches as the garden grows smaller and smaller. I can barely breathe. Can’t think. His arms are the only things keeping me from plummeting.
“Put me down, you lunatic!”
“Stop squirming,” he says in my ear. “You don’t want to slip free when we’re up this high.”
This absolute bastard.
He flies us higher. The tower’s surroundings fade into smudges of green and gray below.
The air becomes crisper and sharper in my lungs the more we climb.
Scillari spreads out below us in a patchwork of colors—the starlight rivers, the teal lakes, the forests, and the multi-hued flowers that cover the mountains.
Hazy spires jut through the clouds, distant glimpses of sprawling residences carved into the cliffs.
I can’t even see the Wolf’s property now.
“Where are you taking me?” I ask.
No answer. Just wing beats and rushing wind. We’re approaching the sea now.
That’s… That’s not good. Nothing for miles. No way to escape, no chance of rescue. He could drop me, and I’d vanish without a trace.
“Wolf, where—”
“This is the Osbu Sea,” he says, barely audible over the wind.
Oh, good, kidnapping and vague answers. That’s comforting.
Craning my neck, I glare up at him. “Why are we in the middle of nowhere? What are you doing?”
“You’ve been secluded in that tower for too long getting your ass handed to you by Amara,” he says. “I thought you could use an introduction to an ancient Scillarian tradition. You should be flattered that I’m making an exception for your fragile human constitution.”
Nothing about this bodes well.
“Dare I ask what this ‘tradition’ is?”
“Water landings,” the Wolf says conversationally.
“Mastering them is a rite of passage for young demis. We start the infants out with something small—a pond or lake. Eases them into the rush while minimizing the damage to those soft little baby limbs when they inevitably botch the angle on the first few passes.” I feel his smile curve against my temple.
“But you know me. I’ve never been one to coddle.
Hands-on instruction garners much more satisfying results. ”
“Hands-on—”
“In fact, I believe you’re overdue for your first lesson. Remember that vow I made after our little wager? The one about making you pay dearly for hustling me?”
Oh fuck. Oh fuck.
Every cell in my body bellows a warning, animal instinct clawing to the surface. “Wolf, don’t you dare—”
“The trick,” he murmurs, his lips brushing the tender skin just behind my ear, “is to streamline. Aim for the horizon, keep your chin up, and hit the water at the shallowest possible angle. Oh, and do remember to scream nice and loud for me. If you’re convincing enough, I might consider fishing you out before the sharks catch your scent. ”
What—
“Wolf!”
“See you soon, you little cheat.”
And then the bastard drops me.
There’s a moment of dread where I’m suspended in the wind. And then gravity seizes me, and I’m plummeting. The sea hurtles closer, closer, closer. I send up a prayer to the stars, to the realm, to any power bothering to listen to the pathetic human plummeting to her death.
Please please please not like this don’t let it end like this please—
Arms close around my waist, arresting my fall so suddenly that all the oxygen leaves my lungs. And then we’re climbing again, the water receding as we wheel through clouds back into the open sky.
“You absolute fuck,” I choke out between shallow breaths. “You fucking fucker!”
He laughs. “One little fall and she loses her entire vocabulary.”
“Fuck you!”
“Honestly, that was underwhelming. Where was the flailing? The tears? The frantic bargaining for your life? I’m insulted.”
“I’ll be sure to scream to your exacting standards next murder attempt.”
“This is basic fledgling shit, nemesis. If an infant can manage a harmless little plunge, so can you. Builds character. And bone density.”
“A harmless little plunge?” I splutter. “Those infants have wings!”
“Are you really conceding defeat after one tiny dive? I thought you had more teeth than that. Or was your display in the armory a fluke?”
“My only regret is not putting that arrow through your arrogant face!”
“I don’t know if you should be making threats, Devaliant. My hands might… just… slip.” He punctuates this by releasing one of his arms around my waist.
I yelp, clinging to his other arm. “Don’t you dare—”
We’re diving again before I can even catch my breath. His body curls around me as we plunge straight down, the water rushing up to meet us. I can almost taste the brine. The foam against my skin.
This is how I die. This insane, reckless god is going to be the death of me.
At the last possible second, mere feet from the waves, the Wolf’s wings snap out and he flattens us out into a smooth glide.
“I hate you,” I manage. “I despise you. If I had a knife right now, I’d carve out your rotten heart.”
“One would think you weren’t grateful that I grabbed you before you landed in the sea, nemesis.”
I take it back. Fuck the knife. I’ll tear his throat out with my teeth.
“You’re the worst thing that’s ever happened to me,” I grumble.
He laughs then, the sound so startled and genuine it makes my breath catch. I wonder how many other humans have had the pleasure of hearing it. That’s all it takes to unwind the tension from my muscles.
“Do you do this a lot?” I ask, once I’ve managed to calm my frantic pulse.
“Play with human girls by dropping them over open water? No, you’d be the first to inspire this particular torment.”
“Lucky me,” I grumble. “But I meant taking off and flying until you can’t see land anymore. Is that something you like?”
He’s quiet for a long moment, the silence punctuated with the rhythmic beat of his wings and the faraway cries of gulls. “No,” he finally says, soft enough that I almost miss it. “I haven’t flown for anything but duty and death in a very long time.”
Something twists beneath my ribs, a tender ache blooming like a bruise. Because I can almost see it. The male he was before the world took everything soft and gentle and left only violence behind.
It’s a dangerous thought. But as I stare out at the horizon, marveling at the salt spray kissing my cheeks, my defenses waver.
Because this? It’s the loveliest thing I’ve felt in longer than I can remember.
There’s a fierce sort of joy thrumming through me, bright and effervescent.
I want to wrap myself in this feeling and cling to it with both hands.
“Show me,” I say, “what it was like to fly. Before.”
The Wolf goes still at my back. His hands tighten on my waist as he shifts me in his arms until we’re face to face.
The way he’s looking at me… It’s as if I’ve just handed him a blade and bared my throat. As if he’s never seen me before this moment. I realize this strange, unspoken desire goes both ways—I’m not alone in wanting to pretend, for one day, that we’re something we’re not.
“The trick,” the Wolf says, “is to surrender. To embrace the fall and trust that you’ll be caught.”
I swallow hard around the sudden lump in my throat. “That sounds like a dangerous game for a woman with no wings.”
“No more dangerous than the game we’re already playing.” His head dips, his breath ghosting across my cheek, my jaw. “I’m going to let go now, Devaliant. I need you to let me.”
Let me. Such incongruous words, falling from the lips of this lovely, vicious god.
“All right,” I say.
Slowly, the Wolf takes my hand and flattens my trembling palm against the beat of his heart. His skin is warm through the thin fabric of his shirt. “Feel my heartbeat and match your breathing to it. Let everything else fall away.”
I do as he says, focusing on the drum of his heart against my fingers, the rise and fall of his chest as I time my inhales to his. Gradually, bit by bit, my racing pulse begins to calm.
“That’s it,” the Wolf murmurs. “Just like that. Keep your eyes on me and your breathing steady. Can you do that for me?”
I let out a shaky exhale and nod.
“I’m going to turn you around now. And when I let go, I want you to spread your arms out wide like they’re wings. Imagine you’re soaring. That you’re limitless and untethered. Understand?”
“Yes,” I say.
The Wolf’s hands are gentle as he rotates me with one arm locked around my waist, and the other a steady pressure between my shoulder blades, until there’s nothing between me and the sea below.
“Arms out. Eyes up. You’re going to fall, and I’m going to catch you.
” His lips brush my ear. “I’ll always catch you. ”
And then he lets go.
For an instant, I’m suspended. Weightless. Everything in me seizes, screaming wrong wrong wrong—
The Wolf’s arms close around me, hauling me against him. “Breathe. I have you.” His heart thrums against my spine. “Do you trust me?”
The word lands like a blade between the ribs. Trust is such a small, simple thing, and handing it to the god who’s going to kill me is so dangerous. So stupid.
But I don’t want this to end yet.
“Just for today,” I say. “For this moment, I trust you.”
His exhale gusts across my nape. “Then fall, Devaliant. Fall and fly.”
And he releases me.
This time, I don’t fight the plummet. I surrender myself to gravity’s inexorable pull, the swoop and fall, the giddy lurch. As untethered and free as the birds wheeling above.
Strong arms snatch me out of the plunge. I slam into the Wolf’s chest with a breathless whoop, my hands finding his shoulders.
He grins. “Again?”
“Again,” I say, smiling back.
I lose track of the minutes. Of the dives and catches, the rushes of fear and excitement and impossible joy.
All I know is his body pressed against mine, the drum of his heartbeat in my ears.
I let the fear and the doubt all fall away, the hard, ugly things tangled like nettles around my heart.
No past between us. No hate or splintered things.
Just the wind and the sky and the sea. The two of us rising and falling, falling and rising.
I spread my arms wide and picture myself drifting, weightless. And when I tip back into the sky, it’s not a plummet. It’s flying.
The Wolf is always there to catch me.
I surrender to the rush, let the excitement sing through my veins, and when he pulls me to him after the final dive, I’m laughing, wild and breathless. I feel impossibly light.
The tower comes into view too soon. The Wolf lands in the center of the garden, his hands flexing on my hips before he sets me back on my feet.
For a long moment, we simply stare at each other, our breath slowing.
“Why?” I ask. “Why did you do this for me?”
His knuckles graze my cheek. I fight the urge to lean into it, to chase that fleeting warmth.
“It was something you needed,” he says. “And maybe I needed it too.”
I almost touch him back. Almost take his face in my hands and put all my words in the brush of my fingers across his skin. Because for a little while, we were both searching for the same nameless thing out there above the waves. Both wanting. Both unable to put that strange yearning into words.
But then he steps back and drops his hand. “Goodnight, Devaliant.”
The words are cool. Polite. A reminder of who and what we are, all tied up in meaningless pleasantries.