Chapter 14
FOURTEEN
KIELYNE
Iwake to warmth and the solid weight of his arm across my waist.
Gray light filters through cracks in the cellar door. Dawn. Time to move again, to run again, to face the hunt that never ends.
But for a moment, I let myself stay. Feel his heartbeat against my back. Breathe in the smell of him—smoke and leather and sex.
I slept with an orc. An enemy. A killer.
And I don’t regret it.
That should terrify me. Instead, it feels like something shifting into place. Something I didn’t know was missing.
He stirs behind me. His arm tightens, pulling me closer.
“Morning.” His voice is rough with sleep. “You’re thinking again.”
“Trying to figure out what happens now.”
He turns me in his arms. Cups my face. Kisses me slow and deep, like we have all the time in the world instead of stolen hours.
When he pulls back, there’s something fierce in his gaze. Something that makes my heart stutter.
“Now we survive,” he says. “Find the war band. Get you somewhere safe. And then...”
“And then?”
“Then we figure out what this is.” His thumb traces my cheekbone. “What we are. What we could be.”
I think about Millbrook burning. About fifteen years of running. About all the walls I built to keep from getting hurt.
He’s already past them. Somehow, without me noticing, he got past every defense I had.
“Okay.” I press my palm to his chest, feel his heart beating steady beneath my hand. “Let’s survive first. Figure out the rest as we go.”
We dress in the dim light. Gather our weapons. Share what’s left of the water.
When he takes my hand to lead me up the stairs, I let him. When we step into the dawn, I don’t pull away.
The Bloodscar Plains stretch before us—endless and hostile and full of danger.
But I’m not facing it alone.