SIXTEEN IMARA
SIXTEEN
IMARA
We find shelter as the sun climbs higher—a cave mouth hidden behind a fall of dead vines, deep enough to hide our presence from casual search. I settle Dena on a pile of my outer robes, checking her for injuries while Kharvek stands guard at the entrance.
The child is exhausted but unharmed. Terrified but alive. When she finally sleeps, it’s the deep unconsciousness of someone who’s escaped the unthinkable.
I know that sleep. Remember it from my own childhood, after the rituals that left me too drained to dream.
“She’ll need food.” Kharvek’s voice from the entrance. “Water. Rest.”
“I know.” I join him at the cave mouth, keeping my voice low. “The Matron will send hunters.”
“Already has, probably.” He scans the barren landscape. “Grokh is down—but not for long.”
I process this. “He’s still alive?”
“For now.”
No elaboration. No description. Just the flat acknowledgment of unfinished business.
“Will they follow us? The other guards?”
“Some.” His scarred hands flex at his sides. “Most will scatter after what they saw. The ones who stay loyal—” A shrug. “We’ll handle them.”
We. Such a small word for such a massive assumption.
“You could leave.” I don’t know why I say it. “Take your chance while the chaos lasts. Head for territory beyond the Matron’s reach.”
He turns. Those mismatched eyes finding mine in the cave’s dim light.
“Could you?”
“No.” The admission comes easy. “Dena. The others. I can’t abandon them.”
“Then neither can I.”
“Why?”
The question hangs between us. He’s silent—long enough that I think he won’t answer.
“Because you looked at me and saw a person.” His voice roughens. “Because you offered to stand beside me when anyone sane would run. Because—” He stops. Jaw tight.
“Because what?”
He moves. Fast, too fast, closing the distance between us until I’m pressed against the cave wall and his hands are braced on either side of my head. The furnace of his body surrounds me. The smell of blood and power and a deeper scent—something that belongs only to him.
“Because I can’t stop thinking about you.” Each word lands heavy. “Because when you touched my face out there, I wanted to—” He breaks off. Breathes. “I don’t know how to want things, Imara. The clan didn’t teach me that. But I want you, and I don’t know what to do with it.”
My heart hammers against my ribs. My body responds to his proximity without my permission—warmth flooding my core, breath quickening, every nerve alive with awareness.
“You could kiss me again.”
His hands tighten against the stone. That controlled violence trembling at the edge of release.
“That won’t help.”
“I know.” I reach up. Curl my fingers in the front of his blood-stiff shirt. “Do it anyway.”
He does.
Just the two of us in a dead cave at the edge of a dead valley, with the wreckage of our plans behind us and nothing but uncertainty ahead.
His mouth claims mine with deliberate intent. Not gentle—he doesn’t do gentle—but thorough. I open for him, let him in, let him take what he wants because I want it too.
I pull back just enough to breathe. “I know. We need to—”
“Yes.”
Neither of us moves.
His forehead rests against mine. His breath comes hard and fast, matching my own. I can feel the thundering of his heart, can feel exactly how much this costs him—stopping when everything in him wants to continue.
He releases me. Steps back. That controlled violence settling into what looks almost like calm.
But his eyes follow me as I return to check on Dena. Hot. Hungry. Patient in a way that makes my skin prickle with anticipation.
I settle beside the sleeping child, watching Kharvek take up his guard position, the Matron’s voice still moving through my memory.
You’ve shown me what you could produce.
She thinks she knows what we are. What we could become. She thinks our value lies in bloodlines and breeding potential and the offspring we might make.
She’s wrong.
What we’re building isn’t a bloodline. It’s a rebellion. A choice. Two people deciding they’re worth more than the purposes they were made for.
And whatever comes next—hunters, war, the Matron’s wrath—we’ll face it the same way we faced the pit.
I close my eyes and let myself rest, feeling Kharvek’s presence at the cave mouth, knowing he’s watching over us.
Knowing that, for the first time in ten years, I’m not fighting alone.