Chapter 13
Talon
I'm not usually interested in humans.
They're fragile, predictable creatures. Most spend their lives scrambling for scraps of importance before eventually dying anyway. They’re entertaining enough in small doses, but rarely worth much sustained attention.
Which makes it particularly irritating that I can't seem to stop looking at Nyx.
The carnivorous plant lunges again. One of its vines snaps toward my face, thorns glistening with sticky venom. I sidestep easily and drive my sword through the length of it. The vine drops into the grass, twitching violently.
Behind me, Nyx sucks in a breath.
Spinning my sword, I return to my thoughts. To the woman behind me.
I first noticed her during the feast. Not because she was the most beautiful woman in the room. She wasn't. The wealthy had several beauties among them, and vampires tend to make everyone else look a little unfortunate by comparison.
Another vine lashes toward me.
I sever it without looking.
The thing shrieks. Actually shrieks. The sound is halfway between a dying animal and metal scraping across stone.
I dismiss it, my thoughts turning back to the strange human woman behind me.
No, what caught my attention was the way Nyx looked at everything around her. The food. The competitors. The gods. Like she'd stumbled into an entirely different world and couldn't quite decide whether to be horrified or fascinated by it.
Then she'd looked at me.
The memory nearly pulls a grin from my face.
Most people don't stare at vampires unless they're making a concentrated effort not to. Lady Nyx Nocturne had looked directly across the room at me, curiosity written all over her face, before realizing she'd been caught. Then she'd immediately pretended to be interested in something else.
It was a terrible performance. A charming one, admittedly. But terrible.
The plant rears upward. The central bulb splits apart like a flower blooming in reverse, revealing several rows of jagged teeth surrounding the golden blossom she'd been sent to retrieve. The thing is large enough to swallow a horse whole.
I can practically feel Nyx's horror from here.
"Stay back," I call.
As though she was planning to do anything else.
The plant snaps toward me. I leap aside. Its jaws crash shut where I'd been standing, spraying sap and shattered bark in every direction. Before it can recover, I drive my sword into the side of the creature and tear downward.
Green fluid sprays across the clearing. The plant convulses. Still not dead. Stubborn thing.
Nyx appeared to be human, but there was something unusual about her. Something that didn't quite fit. Humans have a way of dulling around the edges. They become weighed down by life, responsibility, and all the little disappointments they collect along the way.
She didn't. Everything about her seemed vivid. Bright. As though she experienced every emotion more intensely than the people around her.
Then she'd stepped forward before the gods. Lady Nyx Nocturne. Human. Apparently.
Though I'm still not entirely convinced.
The plant's largest vine whips around and almost catches my shoulder. The impact is hard enough to crack a tree behind me.
Annoying.
I grab the vine before it can retreat and yank. The entire creature lurches sideways.
"Really?" I mutter.
The thing hisses at me. I hiss back. Then I tear the vine off completely.
By every reasonable measure, she should have been forgettable.
A noblewoman with no combat training. A human without any unique abilities competing against vampires, shifters, berserkers, warlocks, and whatever other monsters the gods dredged up for their amusement.
The sort of woman I'd normally dismiss after a single glance.
Instead, she lodged herself somewhere in the back of my mind and refused to leave.
The plant lunges one final time. I step into the attack.
One slash.
Then another.
It moves away, shifting, studying me. Trying to decide my weaknesses. Unfortunately for it, I have none.
Maybe my fascination with her is because she's the only person in this competition who still reacts honestly to things. Every thought seems to cross her face before she can stop it. Curiosity. Fear. Determination. All of it there for anyone paying attention to see.
Or maybe it's because she volunteered for a competition she has absolutely no business surviving. I've always admired a certain kind of recklessness.
Whatever the reason, I keep finding my attention returning to her. Which is an unfortunate development. Especially now.
Turning, I find her standing a few feet away. Her eyes are wide, her breathing quick, and despite everything that happened, she's looking at me as though she's trying to solve a puzzle.
I find that I like the attention more than I should.
It’s a dangerous realization. Particularly when I seem to have just been hacking apart a carnivorous plant the size of a carriage for a woman I barely know. A woman I absolutely should not be interested in.
And yet.
This was not my challenge. It was hers. But when I saw her and knew she was going to die, all logic says I should’ve let it happen. One less team to compete with.
But that’s not what I did. Foolishly.
My gaze moves slowly over her. The leather armor clings to her in ways that should probably be illegal.
Her dark hair has mostly escaped whatever attempt was made to tame it, strands sticking to her flushed cheeks.
Her hazel eyes are wide as she stares betweenme and the massive flower trying very hard to kill us both.
For a woman facing imminent death, she's remarkably distracting.
Rather than giving in to the decidedly unhelpful direction of my thoughts, I shift my grip on my sword and ask, "Did you really think this would be easy?"
She blinks.
Then she gasps and stumbles backward as the plant chooses that exact moment to rear up again.
"Right," I mutter, turning to intercept a thorned tendril aimed at my head.
My blade bites into the vine, and I find myself strangely annoyed that saving her life is interfering with my flirting.
Rather than give into the, frankly, primal urges I’m faced with, I ask, my sword heavy in my hand, “So, you come here often?”
She cries out and points in front of me.
"We'll continue this conversation when you're slightly less convinced of your impending demise."
I turn to see the great, twisting plant rise up again, its thorned tentacles reaching for me. I beat back the fucking plant with my sword once more, wanting to return to the conversation with the woman behind me.
“Come on,” I gasp, twisting and slicing at the roots, a single bead of sweat running down the center of my back with the effort. “What kind of fertilizer are they using out here?”
“Since when do plants try to murder people?” Lady Nyx pants, dagger out, but doing no good.
I chuckle to myself at her indignation and turn in time to see her duck, barely dodging a vined tendril grasping for her.
Regaining her footing, her gaze flits to mine, and she says, “This wasn’t even on my list of things that could happen—”
“Ri-ight,” I grunt, swinging the sword up over my head with a small roar. When I bring it down, the blade notches into the plant’s thick trunk. Over my shoulder, unable to see her, I ask, “And that’s the attitude you’re taking into the trials tomorrow?”
My sword is stuck, and I yank, trying to free it. Behind me, the woman lets out a sound of anger and I turn, ducking as a sizable rock sails over my head and hits against the plant, knocking it back and freeing my sword.
I flash her an incredulous look. “A rock?”
“It worked, didn’t it?” she asks, now breathing hard enough that my eyes are instantly drawn to her chest.
“Well, you almost took off my head, so—”
But she cuts me off, her eyes widening and shifting to a place over my shoulder, “Watch out!”
I’m tired of this song and dance. Even when I was human and could enjoy the occasionally roasted vegetable, I still wasn’t a fan of plants. I’ve never been one to take a stroll through the gardens.
Already, I’ll have to spend time cleaning the sticky green residue from my sword before the morning. With a growl of anger, I turn and hack at the bush like a lumberjack, cleanly severing the trunk.
“Wait!” the woman calls, but it’s too late, the plant is already falling to the side like a tree felled in the middle of the forest, the movement seeming to suck at the air around it.
“What—?” I gasp, when I feel the sudden weight of her hand on my shoulder.
“Help me up!” she insists, and though my normal inclination is to ignore orders, this time I don’t.
This time, I act instinctively, catching her around the waist as she leaps off the ground. She leans farther than she should, reaching for the plant, and I instinctively steady her against me.
With nimble fingers, while being held in my arms, she plucks at the flower, managing to pull it back and against her chest before the plant crumples to the ground, turns to ash, and melts into the dirt.
For a passing second, there’s nothing but the sound of our breaths, the faint whistle of the breeze through the garden, and the heavy beating of her heart echoing through my body like a ghostly reminder of the once-working organ I used to operate myself.
“Oh-kay,” I say, clearing my throat and interrupting the silence. Together, we stare at the spot the monster once occupied. “Talk about needing a green thumb.”
She laughs, the sound warm and unexpected in the cool night air.
Then she squirms.
I realize I'm still holding her.
My arms are braced beneath her legs. Her body is pressed against mine, close enough that I can feel the rapid rise and fall of her breathing, close enough that I can feel the heat of her through the leather.
Far too close.
Slowly, I lower her. Or at least, that is my intention. As she drops lower, her balance falters. Her hand catches on my shoulder, and instead of stepping neatly away, she slides down the front of my body.