Chapter 27
Twenty-Seven
Surrender
Iclung to the Commander. My head spun and my stomach churned viciously.
His hand was still splayed across my thigh, holding me as if he wasn’t quite ready to let go.
But suddenly, I needed him to. Desperately.
The spinning, the pressure, the taste of my own blood still thick in my mouth was too much.
My stomach twisted, bile lurching up my throat.
“Put me down,” I rasped, squirming against him.
He looked at me sharply, dark curls falling just above his strong eyebrows that drew together. “Lyra—”
“Put me down!” I snapped, pushing at his chest with what little strength I had.
The moment my boots hit the dirt, my knees buckled.
I stumbled away from him with my hands pressed against my stomach.
I heaved violently and the world spun. My body bent in half as everything inside my stomach tumbled onto the ground.
It splattered against the dirt in hot, acidic waves.
My hair fell forward, clinging to the sweat on my face.
I was painfully aware of the Commander standing mere feet away from the mess that I was.
When the retching finally stopped, I wiped my mouth with the back of my trembling hand and staggered a few steps away from the mess. My entire body felt scraped raw.
“Don’t say anything,” I warned without looking at him.
He didn’t, but I could still feel him watching me.
I turned just enough to glance back at him.
Shadows flickered at the edges of his form like they were tethered to him by emotion alone.
His eyes were unreadable. But he looked…
tense. Coiled. But not from disgust. From restraint.
I wondered if feeding from me had affected him as well.
I wrapped my good arm around my torso, trying to hold myself together through the unbearable pull of his venom and the dizziness.
“Sorry, that was… disgusting,” I muttered.
The Commander chuckled, low and dark. “A normal reaction after shadow jumping for the first time.” I looked up, but before I could speak, my knees gave out.
The world tilted. He vanished into a rush of shadow and reappeared just in time to catch me.
His arms wrapped around me, solid and sure and I let my fingers trail along the edge of his jaw, feeling the scratch of stubble.
My hand slid into the dark curls at the nape of his neck, tangling softly.
I imagined tugging them. Arching beneath him. Pulling him closer—
“Please, stop.” His voice was husky and strained as his eyes darkened.
Voices cut through the trees, reminding me that the world existed outside of him.
“Try to behave, Little Drownling,” he murmured under his breath. “I’m not the only one who can scent you.”
I blinked up at him, dazed and confused.
“Well, what do we have here?” Solas’s voice was all drawl and amusement as he walked towards us. Cerilla followed behind him, her eyes narrowing immediately.
The Commander lowered me slowly to the ground, gently setting me on my feet.
A sound of protest slipped from my lips, my fingers clinging to his skin.
I didn’t want to let go. My legs barely held.
Cerilla crossed her arms, her sharp gaze flicking from me to her brother, then to the way I leant into him, flushed and trembling.
“Well,” she said dryly. “That explains the scent.” She stepped closer, eyes dropping to my wrist. Her lips thinned.
Cerilla sighed, rubbing her temple. But then her gaze dropped, to the puckered mark across his abdomen.
Her breath caught. She tilted her head, her dark eyes assessing.
Then her attention shifted back to me. “You used your blood to save my brother, didn’t you?
” Her voice was different now, no longer sharp.
As though she couldn’t quite believe what I had done.
I nodded, wrapping my hands back around the Commander. The only thing grounding me in the haze of his venom was the throb of his heartbeat beneath my hand.
Cerilla was suddenly in front of me, throwing her arms around me. No hesitation. No revulsion at the gore slicking my skin, or the blood soaking the small amount of clothing I wore. She simply held me, as if I were something fragile and fading, and she wasn’t willing to let me slip away.
“Thank you for not letting him die,” she whispered. I felt the words against my temple more than I heard them.
She pulled back, her face shadowed but no longer distant. Carefully, like I might break, she reached up and tucked a strand of silver hair behind my ear. The tenderness of the gesture and the rawness in her voice undid something deep inside me. I blinked, tears threatening.
“See?” Solas grinned at me from behind Cerilla. “I knew that you liked us.”
“Come, darling, let’s get you healed,” Cerilla murmured, reaching out her hand to me.
I stared at it for a moment, then lifted my gaze to the Commander. My hand trembled as I reached for him instead, silently pleading. With a quiet sigh of exasperation, he slid his arms beneath me and lifted me effortlessly against his chest.
“I’d almost forgotten how strong the post-feeding lust can be,” Solas muttered from in front of us, his voice tinged with amusement. “But that scent is strong.”
A deep rumble vibrated through the Commander’s chest, darkness pulsing off him and digging into his own skin. I wondered if it hurt. Solas quirked an eyebrow at him, the amusement wavering from his face.
Before he could say anything, we came to an abrupt halt, as if the air itself repulsed me.
The air ahead shimmered, a faint blue ripple stretching upward into the night like a glass dome over the trees.
A frown furrowed his brow. Solas turned, confusion flashing across his face as he caught sight of the barrier.
The Commander lowered me gently to my feet. My legs wobbled beneath me, but he kept one hand at my back as he gestured for me to step through without him.
I took an unsteady step forward and slammed into something solid.
The air pulsed where I touched it, a wall of shimmering blue energy radiating outward from the point of contact.
It pulsed skyward like a living barrier, surrounding the camp in a protective dome.
A laugh escaped me, bubbling up hysterically and uncontrollably.
“Well, that explains why I didn’t feel her leave…” Solas muttered, rubbing the back of his neck. The Commander shot him a silent glare.
Solas gestured to the space in front of me, closing his eyes in concentration, a gap large enough for me to pass through shimmered a light blue.
“Why do you laugh?” the Commander asked, pulling me back into his arms to carry me across Solas’ ward.
“The barrier is to keep the monsters out,” I gasped between jagged bursts of laughter that felt too sharp to be sane.
“I’m a monster.” The admission scraped from my throat, raw and cracked.
He didn’t look at me, his jaw locking hard as his grip sank into my flesh, cruel and merciless, a command for silence.
Then he let me fall. His warmth vanished in a breath, replaced by hard ground and pain that jolted into my dislocated shoulder and shredded skin on my arms. I glared at the inked lines across his back as he walked away, each step a dismissal that stung worse than the injury.
He paused, looking at me from over his shoulder.
“From one monster to another,” he said softly, his voice raw. He held my gaze, and I felt trapped in their abyss. “It is not what you are that makes you evil, but your intentions.”
The words struck harder than the fall. For one fractured heartbeat, I couldn’t look away from him. He was my Kingdom’s nightmare. My captor. He was evil. Yet in his eyes, my pain was mirrored back at me. I tore my gaze away, wiping away tears with a trembling hand.
“Heal her,” he commanded towards Cerilla.
He didn’t spare me a glance; his shadows had turned lethal.
Sinking into his skin as though they were trying to tear him apart.
Solas followed him, cursing under his breath.
I watched him walk away, my body begging for him to come back.
It’s just the venom, I reminded myself. Did I still hate him? Did I still want to kill him?
“Lyra.” A sharp snap of fingers cut through my daze. Cerilla stood in front of me, brows raised.
“Hmm?” I mumbled, blinking slowly.
“Drink, darling,” she said softly as she pressed a steaming herbal cup of tea to my lips. The floral taste filled my mouth, spreading through me until the pain numbed.
“This will hurt,” she said gently as I finished the last mouthful.
Before I could brace myself, her hands moved, quick and precise.
Pain sparked like lightning through my shoulder as she gripped and twisted.
There was a sickening pop as the joint slid back into place.
I gasped, the world spinning, but it dulled almost instantly.
A warm haze rolled in, numbing the agony.
I could still feel it, but distantly, like I was observing someone else’s pain.
The venom still swam through my veins, softening the pain that should have been agonising.
Cerilla murmured softly in the Fae language, soft tendrils of darkness knitting the skin on my biceps back together as I stared at the tree line where the Commander had disappeared.
I hoped it would scar, finally I would have a mark on my skin I was proud of.