Chapter 40
Chapter
Forty
ALLIE
T ime fractured as I soaked in what he was offering.
One way in.
One way out.
The only access point which could doom this protected, isolated realm, which had been kept a secret from the outside for generations.
In the Clan world, trust was the most dangerous of gambles.
And this…this was the rarest of those precious wagers.
I heard the unspoken worry in those words.
Can I show you?
Can I trust you not to use this against me?
That was a mighty responsibility.
The kind I’d been trained and raised for.
“I’m coming.” I didn’t waver for a second, even as the memories of those voices skittered up my spine, embedding themselves at the edge of my skull, chilling me to the bone.
Fear was there, so potent, I felt it on the tip of my tongue. Acrid. Metallic. Death.
But Ryker managed to soothe those monsters away. He brought my hands to his lips and kissed my knuckles reverently, closing his eyes.
The ice began to thaw as his lips heated my skin.
No more was said for a long time. We stood there, enmeshed in a lovers embrace, but trapped in the middle of political chaos.
“Why do you want to visit the entry?” I asked. “Reinforce it?”
“Study it.” He raised his head, looking reluctant to stop tasting my skin, even in such a simple way.
“The star is bleeding. The magic veins are too deep in the ground to be accessed. Nobody has been able to find them all. But the tunnel is protected by the same magic. If there is a wound, that’s the likeliest spot. ”
“The voices…” I gulped deeply. “They were horrendous.”
Ryker gave me a grave look. “They match the hearer’s emotions. You were hiding in the back of a cart, tired, hungry, and probably nervous.”
“Yes. But the voices weren’t nervous. They were…unyielding.”
“Same as you.”
I shook my head. That didn’t feel right. “No, I think…I think Solkar’s Reach didn’t want me to leave. The lights tried to stop me before the market, the voices tried to scare me…”
And I’d ignored all those omens in my stubbornness to get away and return to who I thought was an ally.
The worst mistake of my life.
The second had been not poisoning Silas’ wine as a child.
Ryker’s grip on my hands tightened. I could almost feel the same question blazing through me echoed in his own mind.
“If I’m right…” I went on. “How could a crater know I was heading for a trap?”
The question hung between us, leaden.
“ That is a very good question.” He was doing it again, that ticking motion with his jaw. But now it didn’t look as painful as before. I was beginning to learn him, like a battle map. What flutter of his eyelids and parting of his lips meant.
It scared me, how in tune to his emotions I was becoming.
It frightened me even more that I wanted to.
“Solkar’s Reach is an anomaly in Malhaven, crafted by the gods,” he said, voice gravel.
“Ancient magic, not of this world, but it is not omniscient. It cannot know us . Not like that. An entire realm cannot know the minds of humans. Especially not ones within it. The crater might have sensed your plans, and that is being generous. But to know Orion would have attacked you all the way from Aquila…that is impossible.”
I nipped at my lower lip as a new possibility sprouted in my mind. But it was too despicable, too dangerous, too–
“Out with it, Huntress,” he said gently. “I feel you fretting.”
Fret I did. Because it was an awful thing to say.
“What if someone in Solkar’s Reach knew about the plan?” I asked, feeling ridiculous for even voicing such a ludicrous idea.
But it kept on whirling in my mind.
Ryker shook his head. “I trust every soul in this crater. Even the trolls. They have their own laws, even if we don’t understand them.”
“Then how?”
“We will find out,” he said with absolute conviction. “Perhaps Orion had been camping in that clearing for days. It’s close enough to the rim that the crater might have detected enemies on our borders. That has happened before, according to legends.”
“Probably. We like to be prepared in the Protectorate.”
It did make sense. Much more than someone in Solkar’s Reach somehow finding out about the message Orion sent me, my own escape plan, and the plot to steal me away.
Ryker was the only other person in the room when I saw Orion through the portal and he’d been the one to save me.
I shimmied my shoulders, trying to ease the shivers off me. Jitters from revisiting the edge of the crater, nothing more.
“However,” Ryker said. “If the crater did want to prevent you from leaving, that is great news.”
“Because it might try again if I do something equally stupid?”
“I trust we’ve both learned our lessons when it comes to trusting former allies.” He smirked. “It means Solkar’s Reach has accepted you–and wants to protect you, even against yourself.”
I began to laugh, but the mirth quieted as the idea sank into me.
The crater I’d been so desperate to leave only weeks before had wanted to protect me.
Maybe .
If I hadn’t been imagining things–that awful doubt in my own instincts still remained. I wondered when–or if–I’d ever rid myself of it.
But if that was true…this strange realm had done more to protect me than my own Clan.
A bittersweet realization I didn’t know what to do with–except want to protect it just as fiercely.
“When do we leave?” I asked.
“There’s my warrior.” Ryker kissed the top of my head, like he’d done it a thousand times before. It felt normal. Too normal. “We’re gathering at the main entrance at six in the morning, right at the first crow.”
“Gathering?”
“As formidable as the two of us are, we might be heading for a battle. We’ll need all the swords we can get. A battalion is marching with us, along with Nadya and Geryll. They need to learn.”
And, just like that, some of the ice returned. “So if I hadn’t barged into your room tonight–”
“Kind of hard to barge in when you were invited, Allie.”
“–I would have woken up with you gone?”
Without me .
The most painful part was that he didn’t even owe me a goodbye. We weren’t together.
We were…something different. Something unnamed, unofficial, and unbounded.
But that sounded too vulnerable to even think, let alone say out loud.
Ryker smiled. Why in the bleeding stars was he smiling when he’d just planned to leave me here in the fortress while he went off gallivanting to a potential battle without any warning?
“I was actually planning on knocking on your door and asking if you wanted to join me after I’d washed today off me,” he said–and just like that, the storm which had already begun to whirl inside me quieted down with an ashamed hiss.
“But someone –we’re not going to say who, but someone in this very room–was too impatient for that. ”
“Yes, well.” I cleared my throat. “Patience isn’t one of my virtues.”
“Really?” He widened his eyes comically, shaking his head. “I’d never noticed.”
I laughed and pinched his shoulder playfully, finger gliding onto his wet, sleek skin. My fingers lingered on his body, as if I had a claim to him.
I didn’t.
Not married, not promised, not lovers.
Strangers forced together by circumstance and Clan clauses.
Now a vow, not a choice.
But, gods, it felt like it was more than that.
And yet, a strange understanding had bloomed between us and lingered. Born not out of being pressed together by the fates, but by each bringing their strengths and weaknesses, honed and endured years before we’d met.
But that didn’t escape the undeniable pull he had over me–and, from the way his gaze darkened, no sparks in sight, I guessed I wasn’t the only affected one.
The air brimmed with tension and unspoken desires.
It had taken all of my self-control to focus on the discussion and not let my gaze wander down his body once more. But now that my mind had been sated, my body wanted to take the reins.
But that was a bad idea.
The worst.
We were still treading through unknown and murky waters of this new…alliance? It definitely wasn’t a relationship.
My soul, which hadn’t fully healed after Waden, was still tender after all the betrayal I had to endure. All the changes.
I couldn’t open it to anyone else right now. Not even Ryker.
But my body didn’t care–and I didn’t want to care, either.
The air sucked out of the room as Ryker’s hands slid from my shoulders down to my waist, the silk caressing my body under his control.
“I knew you’d like it,” he said, voice molten hunger.
“You chose it?” I asked, surprised.
I’d been so concerned all these clothes weren’t mine that I hadn’t given a thought to how they’d gotten into my room.
“Only the best silks for The Huntress.” He pinched and stroked the green fabric reverently. “I didn’t want you to think you’re marrying into a family of paupers.”
My breath stuttered. Even before we’d exchanged a single word, he’d wanted to make me feel comfortable.
Maybe even impress me. My rooms had been tailored to my Protectorate proclivities and that must have taken time.
The clothes had been chosen to shield me against the elements my body hadn’t been accustomed to.
All done so that I could adjust easier to my new life.
I hadn’t asked–he’d offered.
Because that’s who Ryker was. Someone who thought about everyone else before himself.
The same thing I’d been raised to do. Constantly.
Now here he was, this man who wanted to do that for me.
It…terrified me, how much I wanted to rely on him.
How much my soul wanted to exhale, for what felt like the first time in my life.
“I’m scared,” I said, surprising myself and him.
He froze instantly. “Of?”
“You.”
His hands snapped back to his side. “I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable–”
“No.” I mustered up that Huntress courage and stepped so close to him, our chests touched when we breathed.
Just like back in the crypt, when he’d stolen my air and my logic.
But my eyes fell somewhere near his clavicle; I couldn’t look him in the eyes right now. “You make me want things I shouldn’t.”
I stood there, completely exposed. Not by the silk slip, or the late night, but my own doing.
I just had to open my mouth, spill my fears, and ruin the moment.
I didn’t know what I expected–perhaps reassurance, maybe a confession that I scared him as much as he scared me, so that I’d feel we were on equal footing once more–but it hadn’t been this stunned silence.
The longer he stared at me, not saying a single thing, the more I felt completely stripped of all my defenses. My skin suddenly felt too hot, like it didn’t belong on my body, and my heart began to beat a frantic rhythm.
I’d made a fool of myself, hadn’t I?
I always seemed to do it when it came to men.
Maybe Ryker liked the idea of me. The formidable Huntress who didn’t fear and didn’t cower.
Not the reality, of a full human, with weaknesses and wants and desires.
Wasn’t that how it always went?
People wanted the name, not the person behind it.
I needed to get out of here. Run back to my room, slam the door behind me, and hope the night would erase my embarrassment.
His hand shot out, grabbing the back of my neck.
My gaze snapped to his face. I gasped when I saw the pure male smile slowly pulling at his lips, promising wicked, terrible things.
“Oh, Huntress. You have no idea what I can make you beg for.”