The Breathless Hush #3
Collin winced. Each word hit like a blow.
His head was pounding now—when had that started?
His limbs still trembled. He wanted to say something, anything, but his own breath was too loud in his ears, too uneven.
He thought of asking Hadria to quiet down, but the words wouldn’t come, not over this storm.
Arion had crouched beside the boar. “Wait—who killed this?”
“You know better than to come out here unarmed!” River snapped, still wrestling his dogs, their barks frenzied, desperate, ears flat.
The voices swelled. Collin’s pulse roared.
“Everyone just shut up!” Aries bellowed.
The forest went still. Even the birds stopped singing.
Aries turned to face them. “Are you two alright? Did it bite you?”
Collin swallowed. His throat was too raw. He tried to speak and only rasped air. Cleared his throat. Again.
“We... we’re alright,” he managed. His voice didn’t sound like his own. “Dragonfly shot the panther. Just in time.”
River stepped closer, eyes sharp. “Are you sure it didn’t get you, Collin? You’re bleeding. A lot.”
Collin turned to Dragonfly.
She was still standing behind him, unmoving, her bow forgotten on the ground. Her face was pale—drained of everything but breath. Their eyes met, and he saw it mirrored in her, the same need to get away from all of it. The noise. The blood. The shaking.
“I’m not hurt,” he said quietly—mostly for River’s sake.
Before anyone could respond, he reached for her hand. She didn’t flinch. Her fingers slipped into his like they belonged there.
“I’m going to take her home,” he added, already stepping back.
Voices rose around them—questions, concern, someone calling after him—but it all blurred into the background.
She followed.
That was all that mattered.
Dragonfly didn’t speak, but she let him lead—through bramble-thick shortcuts, over root-tangled slopes, wherever his body told him to go.
When she stumbled over a fallen log, he caught her without thinking, wrapping an arm around her waist, steadying her before she could fall.
She didn’t pull away. That alone unraveled the knot in his chest.
Eventually, his steps slowed. The burning in his limbs began to ease. Their desperate retreat softened—a slow drift through the woods, like they were walking back into quiet and calm.
Then she stopped.
Collin turned just in time to see her press a hand to a tree, as if it were the only thing holding her upright. Then, without a word, she sank to the ground. Her arms wrapped tight around her legs. Her forehead dropped to her knees.
He stood there, breath shallow, mesmerized by the light catching in the strands of her hair as it spilled over her shoulders in wind-blown waves. She looked as if the forest had exhaled and set her down gently.
Collin sat beside her, the earth still unsteady beneath him. His thoughts spun too fast to hold—images flashing and overlapping: the panther’s eyes, the snap of the branch, the blur of blue as the arrow flew. He could still smell the animal’s musk clinging to his skin. It turned his stomach.
And yet—beneath it, a gentler memory.
A light floral scent hovered at the edge of his awareness, teasing his thoughts. He closed his eyes and breathed, slow and deep. The fragrance wound its way through his chest, calming the frantic rhythm of his heart.
She shifted beside him, and the memory clicked into place. He’d smelled it when he held her—his face pressed to her hair, his arms locked around her back. That same soft sweetness lingered now, curling around him like a whispered secret.
He opened his eyes.
She no longer hid her face, but stared blankly into a low, thorny shrub. Her profile was still, distant.
Longing tugged at him—sudden and sharp. He wanted to touch her, to pull her close, feel the shape of her shoulder against his, to rest his mouth at the curve of her neck and breathe her in again. The thought sent a shiver through him, light and electric.
Then his gaze dropped to the blood smeared across the hem of his shirt. Sticky, half-dried. The spell broke.
He exhaled and reached for her bow instead—Glacies. His thumb brushed the smooth blue wood, its surface like the sheen of a frozen lake. Beautiful. Dangerous.
Just like her.
“Are you injured?” she asked quietly.
Collin blinked. “Umm... I’m not sure...”
“May I have a look?”
Collin turned his back to her. He removed his waistcoat, and she pulled up the back of his shirt. For some moments, she carefully studied his injuries.
He didn’t move.
Her fingers brushed the back of his neck—light, careful—and a ripple shot through him, pure and thrilling. The touch was so gentle it almost hurt.
He wanted more. Not in a desperate way, but in that aching, bone-deep way that made him feel both weightless and impossibly alive.
Then she leaned in, close enough that her breath traced across his skin—warm, soft, maddening.
His heart kicked into his throat, stomach tightening.
For a moment, the world narrowed to that single point of contact, and everything else blurred. Her nearness painted flashes behind his vision: closeness, skin, the terrible hunger he’d kept hidden blooming suddenly into light. His pulse stuttered.
He closed his eyes.
Not now. But god—he wanted more.
“I see scratches. No bites”—she tugged down his shirt—“but even so, I think you ought to go to the hospital.”
Collin exhaled slowly, lungs aching with a tremor. He let his head fall back against the tree.
Her breath still lingered on his skin. A ghost of warmth that refused to fade. It tugged at his thoughts, pulled him gently out of the memory of the panther, out of the blood and fear—and into a far more dangerous place.
Now, it was only her.
Every nerve was aware of her presence, the quiet space between them charged and trembling. Whatever had just happened in the forest felt impossibly far away. She was closer. She was now.
He looked at her. “I heard you hit Uriah.”
Dragonfly’s expression tightened. “Who told you?”
“Aries saw it in the courtyard,” Collin said. “Whatever he did, I’m sure he deserved it.”
Her posture eased. “I didn’t mean to hit him so hard... but he kissed me. And when I pushed him away—he did it again.”
Collin grinned lightly. “Then I’m guessing he was following Nic’s bad advice. You shouldn’t hold it against him.”
She frowned. “Why are you defending him?”
He shrugged, though a reckless tide was already stirring in his chest—bright and unwise. Maybe it was leftover adrenaline. Maybe it was her. Either way, the words came before he could weigh them.
“What if someone else kissed you?” he asked, his voice low. “Would you be opposed... if it were me?”
Dragonfly gasped. Her cheeks flushed deep red. “No! I mean—yes. I don’t...”
She shot up to her feet, flustered, and Collin scrambled after her.
“Wait—what does that mean?” he asked, reaching for her before she could flee.
“I’m leaving,” she said sharply, her glare cutting. She reached for her bow, but Collin was already there. His hand closed over it.
For a moment, neither let go.
The bow tensed between them, the wood a tight line stretched between their hands. Their eyes locked—his lit with longing, hers burning cold with fury. And beneath that—something else.
He let go first.
She spun away, breaking the tension with a sharp twist of her body. But it was too late. He’d seen it in her eyes. Just for a heartbeat, before she masked it—desire.
It caught him off guard, even though he’d dreamed of it.
Had she always felt something for him? Was it buried, waiting to be uncovered—or already burning, just hidden behind her pride?
Was she afraid? Or just unsure?
Did she know he was already hers?
Collin quickened his pace until he fell in beside her. She didn’t speed up. That felt like progress—if not forgiveness, at least permission.
Still, she said nothing. Her silence clung to her like armor. She wouldn’t meet his eyes. But there was color high in her cheeks—not just anger. Something else was burning under the surface.
The silence stretched too long. Collin cleared his throat. “You’re finishing school soon, right? Have you thought about apprenticeships?”
Dragonfly shrugged, gaze fixed ahead, her jaw set.
He matched her steps without forcing it, hands stuffed into his pockets, sleeves pushed carelessly to his elbows. A breeze stirred his hair into his eyes; he shook it away, and maybe—he caught her glancing sideways.
Or maybe that was just hope playing tricks again.
The tension grew heavier.
He should kiss her. He could, now that he knew she didn’t entirely object. But in her current mood, she might deck him just to prove a point. He didn’t have Uriah’s daring.
Still, he looked.
Not lewdly, not quite—but with wonder. She was so beautiful.
His gaze traced the shape of her cheek, the curve of her neck, the line of her collarbone.
The sunlight caught in her hair, turned it gold where it brushed her chest. A fine sheen of sweat clung to her blouse, making the fabric hug her form more closely than modesty would like. His heart stuttered.
And then she blushed.
Color bloomed across her throat, rising up her face. Their eyes met, and for a moment—just a moment—everything between them stilled.
Then she asked, “Do you like teaching?”
The question startled him. “Uh—yeah. I do.”
She gave a half-smile, tilting her head. “It seems like it takes a lot of patience. I’m not sure I’d be any good with unruly children.”
Her hair slipped over her shoulder as she spoke, scattering across the rise of her chest. Collin dragged his thoughts back to the question, focusing hard.
“It definitely tests your patience,” he said, laughing softly. “But I enjoy it. I like when something finally clicks for a student. It’s... satisfying.”
“I’m looking forward to finishing school,” she said, a little more quietly now. “But I don’t know what comes next.”
Collin knew that school was hard for Dragonfly.
When they were younger, the teasing was relentless—children jeering at her name, as if it were a joke to be unwrapped again and again.
But as they grew older, the mockery darkened, shifting into whispered rumors about her family.
Her mother’s supposed infidelity. Her sister’s affair with a married man.
In public, Collin had heard the names they threw at her—cruel, ugly words like harlot and whore, spat as casually as greetings. But what she endured in private, he could only imagine. And that imagining made his stomach turn.
Just the other day, Collin had overheard Ken boasting to his friends that Dragonfly had let him see her breasts. Another chimed in, claiming he’d touched them. Collin knew her too well to believe a word of it—but that didn’t mean those men hadn’t tried something.
He’d responded the only way his outrage knew how, with his fists.
It wasn’t the first time. He always meant to hold his temper, tired of scraping together money just to pay the fighting fines. But how could he stand idle while they dragged her name through the mud? How could he pretend not to hear when the filth reached this level?
A few weeks earlier, those same fellows had dared each other to catch a glimpse of the birthmark rumored to be on the inside of her thigh. A game, they called it. Collin saw it for what it was.
And if defending her meant bloodied knuckles and another fine—he’d pay it a hundred times over. There were worse prices than coin. Let them talk about that.
“Whatever you end up doing,” Collin said, “I’m certain you’ll be great at it. And if you don’t like it, you can always change course. We’re not meant to stay stuck.”
Her eyes softened. The edge in her posture dissolved. She was looking at him now—not sharply, but dreamily, like she saw something in him that surprised her.
Without warning, she reached for his elbow and tugged him sideways. “Don’t step on those.”
A jolt shot through him, light and sparkling. For a moment, his thoughts scattered. “What?”
She pointed to a small patch of wildflowers blooming right in the center of the trail. Her hand still rested lightly on his arm as she guided him around them. When they passed, she let go.
He stopped walking. The road to North Town was just ahead. In a few dozen steps, she’d be gone—and he wasn’t ready for that.
His heart thudded, rising into his throat. He tried to will his thoughts steady.
“I wonder if you’d like to...” he began, then faltered, heat creeping up his neck. “If you might enjoy taking a stroll with me through the market. Tomorrow. Late?”
She flushed, her cheeks deepening from pink to red. Her lashes dipped low before she lifted her gaze again. “I can’t in the evening...”
His stomach dropped.
“But... I could meet you earlier. Maybe late afternoon, if you’re free?”
Relief burst through him. “Of course! Yes. That’s perfect. Should we meet by the clock tower?”
She nodded, smile soft, eyes warm. Then she looked at the road ahead—almost wistful—before turning back to him. Her chest rose in a quick breath.
And then—before he could think, before he could move—she leaned in and pressed the gentlest kiss to his jaw.
Soft. Warm. And his heart stopped beating.
It was over in a blink. She was already jogging ahead, her hair catching the light.
Collin stood frozen.
Had she really kissed him?
So quick—too quick—but yes, it had happened. He was certain of it. The shape of her lips lingered on his skin.
Above him, a bird whistled brightly from a branch. Collin smiled up at it.
And whistled back.
He jumped at the sound of his name—screamed, raw and panicked.
The voice sent a cold jolt down his spine. Every hair on the back of his neck rose.
He spun toward the noise, heart already thudding—and saw a figure galloping toward him, silhouetted in frantic motion.
River was sprinting, his dogs at his heels, all of them wild with motion. He looked spent—like he hadn’t stopped running for miles.
He crashed into Collin, nearly knocking them both off balance.
“Collin! Come quick!” River gasped. “It’s your grandfather... Aries is with him now. Hurry—please, Collin—we have to go!”