Chapter 35
Chapter
Thirty-Five
ALLIE
T he shocked silence didn’t even have time to land.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” I asked at the same time he said, “Why did you flinch?”
The fire crackled louder.
“You first.” Ryker jutted out his chin at me. It had gotten sharper, his movements no longer gentle, but controlled in a warrior way–efficient and imposing.
“I–”
The fuck was I going to say? The same problem as with the arch remained. I thought I was crazy for seeing lights that hunted me.
The little girl had seen it, too, though.
Maybe.
She might’ve pointed a weird twig.
“Yes?” He pressed. He left the bottle on the table, not taking his sparking eyes off me, and stepped closer.
I drew back, unsure of myself and his sudden seriousness.
“I’m…not really sure.” I gulped.
He was going to think I was mad.
He kept prowling toward me, a hunter on the quest for truth, and I retreated until my back met the stone right between two rows of coffins, and I couldn’t retreat anymore.
“You were sure before.” He placed his palms on either side of my head, towering over me. “When I asked you about the arch.”
My reply was a gulp.
“Allie.” He closed his eyes and took a deep, centering breath.
But the intense energy wafting off him didn’t settle, even as his gaze settled on me again, the sparks no longer there.
They’d been replaced by deep shadows, darkening the corners, and making him look like the Commander I’d feared before I’d met him. “This is serious. What did you see?”
I could have lied.
I could have told a thousand different tales with that sharp tongue of mine.
He wouldn’t have bought them, though. Maybe he would have pretended, but that lie would have stayed between us, slowly eroding what little trust we’d managed to build so far.
And I didn’t want that.
“A light,” I began, unsure of every word. Please don’t think I’m insane . “A purple light flashed right next to my palm and it scared me. I know it sounds crazy, but that’s what I saw. Honestly.”
For the first time, I saw pure shock on his face. Eyes wide, forehead wrinkled, mouth open shock.
The change was jarring, especially since he’d looked like a damn fierce statue only moments before.
“Solkar’s spear,” he cursed at the ceiling. “It’s not crazy. It’s impossible .”
“Can’t be impossible if I saw it, can it?” I said with some bite. “You mean it’s real ?”
He nodded solemnly.
“If it’s real…” And I still wasn’t all that convinced. “..why is it chasing me?”
“Chasing you?” his voice slashed through the tension.
“Yes. It keeps showing up when I least expect it, ever since I came here. It tried to stop me when I ran away.”
Ryker cursed agains and pushed himself away from the wall, pacing, his frantic energy bouncing all over the room and delving inside of me.
Only then did I become truly worried. Because he was worried.
“What does this mean?” I asked, not moving from the wall.
“I don’t know,” he said quickly, stern gaze trying to bore holes into the floor in tune with his thundering steps. “This shouldn’t be possible.”
“At least I didn’t hear the hum this time,” I said, trying to ease the heavy air.
Ryker froze mid-stride. His head turned slowly toward me, as if afraid of what he’d might see there. “What did it tell you?”
Tell me ? “Nothing, it’s just a bunch of gibberish. Like a thousand voices trying to rip me to shreds all at once.”
Goosebumps erupted all over my skin as the memory of the hum clawed its way back into my ears. A thousand screams that will haunt me forever.
Before I could blink, Ryker was upon me again, palms planted on either side of my head. He was breathing deeply, his chest barely grazing mine with each sharp inhale.
“I need you to tell me everything you know,” he said calmly, but I heard the command vibrating behind the words.
And that pissed me off.
“Me? A minute ago, I thought I was imagining things,” I countered. “You’re the one who knows what in the bleeding stars that light is, you tell me.”
He narrowed his eyes. “Why did you bring up the Ashrift Clan, today of all days?”
“You just told me your name.”
“You never asked for it before.”
“I didn’t care before!”
I regretted the words as soon as they left my mouth. I saw the crack of dejection in his impenetrable mask. Then he blinked and that shred of vulnerability was gone, even as his eyes turned icier.
But it was nothing compared to the chill in his voice. “Good to know.”
“It’s not like that.” I sighed and licked my lips. “When I came here, all I wanted was to get out. When I came back, I could barely hold on. Now I’m finally coming back to myself.”
He nodded, though the coldness didn’t leave him.
“Fair enough,” he said, sounding like he didn’t consider it fair or enough one bit.
“So it’s just a coincidence that today I met with the Northern Clans for the first time in years and today is the day you bring them up for the first time while revealing you saw Solkar’s Rays and heard Solkar’s Song? "
Solkar’s Rays . So that’s what those bothersome lights were called.
“Hey, I didn’t plan this. Any of this.” I hadn’t even planned to be here tonight. “Why did you even meet the Northern Clans if you despise them so much?”
His chin jutted out. “Answer the question, Huntress.”
Huntress ? I tilted my own Vegheara pointy chin up as high as I could, the first thunder of the storm thudding in my chest. “That wasn’t a question, that was an accusation. You have no reason to distrust me.”
He chuckled, but it sounded icy and wrong. “You almost set fire to the sweets shop and escaped the crater, remember?”
Right.
One of the worst mistakes of my life.
“I did and I’m sorry. But that was before, when I was trying to get back to where I thought I belonged.” I clenched my jaw. “Can you seriously tell me you wouldn’t have done the same thing if you’d woken up in Aquila?”
His lips tightened, but no sound came. So yes.
Ryker and I seemed to have been carved out of the same stubborn, resilient rock.
“And even then, it had nothing to do with you or against you,” I said. “I didn’t hurt anybody and don’t plan on doing it. I haven’t given you a reason not to trust me since I came back, now have I?”
“You’re the one who loves to keep saying we used to be enemies.”
“Yes. Used to be. But you’re trying really hard to bring us back there right now.
” I pressed my fingers against his uniform.
“I don’t know what you’re imagining I did or plan on doing, but I don’t have anything to do with these rays or song or dance or the Northern Clans.
You have plenty of real mistakes to choose from to blame me for or rub in my face, you don’t need to invent any.
I won’t stand here to be accused of shit I didn’t do.
I’ve already lost too much, I won’t lose my reputation as well.
Not to lies. Nobody messes with my name, as frail as it is now. Got it?”
By the end of that little speech, I was breathing heavier. I hadn’t even noticed getting myself so worked up, but I’d meant every word of it.
I’d expected more frowns from him.
Maybe clenching that sharp jaw of his until I heard his teeth grind together.
Perhaps more cursing at the heavens.
Instead, a surprised, triumphant smile slowly spread on his face. Even the ice in his gaze thawed.
“What?” I asked, sharper than I’d intended.
“Love to see that fire,” he muttered, his gaze drinking me all in. “Welcome back, Huntress.”
This time, my name sounded like a caress tumbling out of his mouth, rich and praising.
For a few moments, I didn’t know what to do with myself. I just knew my finger was still touching his chest, our bodies were so close together his heat radiated into me, and that unmistakable pull was burning between us.
“Yes, well, I’m not fully back. But thank you.” I cleared my throat. I also didn’t move that finger, pressing right above his heart. “Do you believe me?”
He was quiet for a few beats. Then his brows furrowed. “Yes. For some godsdamned reason, I think you’re not lying.”
The reply deflated me more than I wanted to let on. “Gee, thanks for the vote of confidence.”
“With everything that has happened, can you blame me?”
Godsdamn him , no. “I get it. Trust is a fickle thing.”
“No, trust is precious. It can shatter in a second and can’t be freely given.”
“True,” I said. “Mrs. Thornbrew gave you the speech, too, didn’t she?”
He chuckled, leaning further into me. “She’s given me a lot of speeches lately, mostly about you.”
What was it with Mrs. Thornbrew talking everyone’s ear off about me?
“Really? What did she say?”
“So proud, Huntress.” He huffed a laugh. “She keeps telling me I’m mad.”
“Can’t argue with that. But why?”
“You want a direct quote?”
“Yes.”
He took another deep inhale that I felt in my bones.
“She says I’m mad because…” His tongue darted out to lick his lips. “I haven’t convinced that crazy Protectorate girl to be mine.”
Those words did something ridiculous to my heart. It made it hope like it shouldn’t have.
Something I couldn’t yet name.
Whatever comeback I’d been readying died somewhere in the recesses of my mind and my mouth went dry.
“So you’re mad and I’m crazy, is that right?” I whispered.
“Seems like it. We’re standing in a crypt, talking about the most sacred magic of my realm, and all I seem to be able to focus on is that mouth of yours.” On cue, his gaze dropped to my lips. “That mouth of yours has been driving me mad since the first goddamn word.”
My insides turned molten at the sudden gruffness in his voice.
How could he unbalance me so much in just a few words?
He wanted to make me just as mad as him.
I was the Huntress, wasn’t I? I should be able to do that same thing to him.
“You like it,” I whispered and reveled in the low growl vibrating in his chest. “You like that I’m a brat and you especially like that I talk back to you.”
“I do. I fucking love it.”
Just as the heat within me rose to a maddeningly high level, Ryker finally, mercifully, claimed my lips in a kiss that seared away everything else.