Chapter 8 Rakkh #2
When she finally nods, it’s as if the entire group exhales as one. The tension eases. I restrain myself to a simple nod, then we resume our journey, looking for shelter so we can attempt to rest.
The creature’s stench clings to my claws, sharp in my nose. I hate it. I hate the reminder that she—Lia—was inches from death. That my hearts hammer not from battle, but from the feel of her pressed against me.
Focus.
The dunes ahead shift subtly, and I’m not sure if it is the wind or something else. Unease whispers over my scales. I taste corruption on the wind, chemical rot carried from the poison seeping through the planet and from those cursed metal fragments she keeps touching.
Everyone is moving slower. Feet shuffling, heads drooping. They need sleep, but not here in the open. Travnyk suddenly stops, nostrils flaring. He lifts a hand, calling for us to halt. He studies the desert, but I do not see what has his attention.
“Shelter,” he murmurs. “Stone. Hollow. Safe.”
He moves toward a jagged spine of dark volcanic rock jutting out of the dune. I follow, placing myself between the formation and the others. Lia stays at my shoulder. Every stride I feel her heat through the air between us.
Travnyk brushes sand from a narrow crease in the stone and a shadow opens beneath it. A cavern mouth. Shallow, but sheltered. One entrance. Defensible. My muscles loosen by a fraction.
“Clear it,” I order.
Travnyk slips inside silently. Tomas starts after him, stumbling over his own feet as usual.
“No,” I snap.
He freezes. Lia blinks at me.
“I will check it,” I say.
Before she can object, I duck inside.
The space is small. Warm stone radiates heat into the air. Sand piles along the edges in soft, fine drifts. The walls curve inward where wind or something else once carved them, ages before the Devastation.
The only threat here is the size. Barely enough room for two, maybe three at a squeeze. The thought of Lia pressed close—I force the heat down. I exchange a look with Travnyk, checking that the other side is clear too.
“It is safe,” I say, stepping out.
Tomas exhales in relief as I turn to Lia.
“You will sleep inside.”
She lifts her brows as she frowns deeply.
“Rakkh, I can sleep anywhere—”
“No.”
The word leaves me harsher than I meant, edged with something primal and unwilling to bend. Her throat works and I soften my tone, hopefully enough.
“The cold worsens windburn. The cavern holds heat. You sleep there.”
Travnyk nods. “He is right.”
Tomas shrugs. “Yeah. I don’t mind staying outside.”
“There is room for both of you,” I say.
Lia breathes out slowly, as if choosing whether to fight me. At last she gives a small nod.
“Fine. But only because I’m tired.”
Her words break off as she steps past me.
The entrance is narrow. Only wide enough for one at a time. Her shoulder brushes my ribs as she passes. My arms tense on instinct. Her scent—warm, nervous, stubborn—fills the air, and my wings twitch, wanting to pull her in.
She catches her breath at the brush of scale against fabric but slips inside without a word. I follow her with my gaze. Inside she kneels, brushing her hands over the sand-covered stone floor. She tucks a stray curl behind her ear, lips pressed together in tired concentration.
Mine.
The thought rises unbidden. Dangerous. I grit my teeth until the impulse dulls.
Tomas enters the cavern next. He drops to the floor heavily, then must feel my glare. He looks over at me and puts a respectful amount of space between himself and Lia. Outside, Travnyk selects a smooth stone and leans against it, quiet and watchful.
I position myself across the entrance, wings folded, legs braced. My body blocks the opening completely. No predator can slip past me. No wind can reach her. This is how it should be.
“I will take second watch,” Travnyk says after a moment.
“You will take none,” I rumble.
He makes an amused sound—maybe a laugh, maybe not.
“You cannot guard all night.”
“I can.”
“I will guard at dawn,” Tomas offers half-heartedly.
“You will not,” I growl.
He squeaks and goes silent.
A soft rustle draws my attention to Lia. She sits with her knees drawn up, arms wrapped around them. Her hair falls in front of her face, lit by thin threads of moonlight filtering through the entrance around my body. She looks small in the cavern. Too small.
“Rakkh?” she whispers.
My hearts stutter.
“Yes,” I answer at once.
“You don’t have to stay awake all night.”
“Yes,” I say again. “I must.”
She tilts her head. “Because of the guardian?”
I shake my head slowly.
“Because something hunts these dunes.” Then, quieter, because the truth claws at me. “And because you are in here.”
Moonlight shifts across her face. She studies me like she studies her plants—carefully, quietly, seeing more than I want her to see.
“You are trembling,” she whispers.
I freeze.
“I am not.”
Her lips curve, gentle and knowing. “Rakkh… you are.”
My breath locks in my throat. She crawls closer—close enough that her knees almost touch my tail, close enough I feel her warmth brush my shins.
“Let me check your arm,” she whispers.
“It is fine.”
“It’s bleeding.”
I glance down. I hadn’t felt it, battle heat masking the pain, but she’s right. Thin lines of ichor streak my forearm where the guardian’s spines grazed me. Before I can stop her, she reaches out, tentatively, and brushes the back of her fingers along my scales.
Heat floods me. A shiver—not from pain—runs up my spine. She inhales sharply at the sensation of my scales under her touch.
“Does that hurt?” she asks softly.
No. Yes.
“Keep touching me and it will start to,” I exhale, the sound rough-edged.
Her eyes widen. Color floods her cheeks. She pulls back, flustered, heartbeat fluttering like a trapped creature, but she doesn’t look away. Her voice drops, barely a breath.
“Rakkh… what are we doing?”
Everything inside me tightens—breath, hearts, wings—drawn toward her by a force I cannot explain. Cannot resist. I lean toward her, close enough that her breath touches my chin.
“What we should not be doing,” I answer. “But I cannot stop.”
Her lips part.
Outside, the wind rises sharply—carrying a faint metallic tang from the dunes, from whatever poisoned the guardian, from whatever lies buried ahead. She feels the shift. Her eyes flick to the entrance around my body.
“Tomorrow,” she whispers. “We’ll find the source.”
“Yes,” I say. But I do not move from the doorway. And I do not stop watching her.
Not tonight. Never again.
Lia shifts inside the cavern, settling onto the warmed stone.
The moon paints her in pale silver, softening every edge—except the fire in her eyes.
That remains sharp. Alive. Untamed. She hugs her knees to her chest, watching me through the narrow opening framed by my body.
The air between us hums. Soft. Tense. Too warm.
I should look away, but I don’t.
Her gaze drifts to my arm—the one she touched. It has stopped bleeding, black lines drying across my scales. It doesn’t hurt anymore, but the memory of her touch burns hotter than any wound.
“You should rest,” I say.
It comes out harsher than I intend. Everything does, when she is this close. She lifts her chin.
“I can’t sleep when something’s hunting us.”
“Nothing will enter while I am here,” I rumble low.
A small exhale leaves her. A sound that is not quite trust and not quite surrender, but something fragile in between.
“How do you do that?” she whispers.
“Do what?”
“Sound so sure.”
Because if I am not sure, I will break. Because I cannot lose anyone else. Because the thought of you hurt makes my throat close and my lungs stop.
I swallow those thoughts and instead I say, “Because protecting is what I am.”
Her eyes soften. Too much. Too fast.
“Even me?”
My hearts stutter. I study her face, trying to decide if she understands what that question means for a Zmaj. I don’t think she does. She is human. How can she?
“Especially you,” I say.
Her breath catches. She looks down quickly, pretending to adjust her bag, but her hands tremble. I feel the shift of the air when her pulse speeds up. She pretends she doesn’t know I can hear it and I pretend I’m not listening.
The dunes groan. Sand shifts with the breeze, I hope. Tomas mutters nonsense under his breath. Travnyk sharpens a blade in slow, steady strokes. None of it matters. Not compared to the girl in the cave.
Lia rests her cheek on her folded arms, exhaustion softening her features. She blinks slowly, fighting sleep. Stubborn. As I come to know she is.
“Rakkh,” she murmurs, “you really don’t have to stay awake all night.”
“I do.”
“Because something hunts the dunes,” she says quietly. “But… is that the only reason?”
I freeze. Heat spirals low in my chest, winding tight, dangerous. Her scent—desert, crushed leaves, fear wrapped in courage—pools around me. She is too close. Not close enough.
“I guard what is mine,” I say before I can stop myself.
Her head snaps up. “Rakkh—”
“I do not mean—” The words catch like thorns. “You are not mine. Not… in that way.”
Not yet.
Her lips part. She studies me—eyes wide but not frightened. Curious. Cautious. Drawn.
“Then what way?” she whispers.
I cannot answer. If I do, the world changes. If I do, I cannot take it back. I turn my head toward the opening, forcing distance. The wind cools my face.
“Sleep, Lia.”
She doesn’t move for a long time. I feel her watching me. Testing me. Wanting an answer I cannot give. Finally, she exhales and curls onto her side. Her breathing slows. Softens. Steadies. She doesn’t turn away from me. And I do not look away from her.
The night wears on. The moon shifts. Her breath settles into a gentle rhythm. I memorize it. I memorize everything about her. The slope of her shoulder, the curl of her fingers, the small sigh she makes when warmth replaces fear.
Hours pass. She shivers. Before thought, I curl my tail inward, a slow, careful arc around her feet—not touching, not trapping—but sheltering. Claiming a boundary around her where nothing else may enter.
She murmurs in her sleep. My hearts answer. I do not sleep. I guard.
And something in me—something buried deep beneath scars and loss—admits the truth I cannot speak aloud. If the dunes come for her again, if the sickness hunts her through the roots, if the sky itself opens and drops death upon us…
I will stand between her and every threat on this cursed world.
Because even if my mind says she is not mine, my body does not agree.