Chapter 5
FRACTURED
FELíNE SCREAMED. THE SOUND THAT emerged from Kalevar’s throat was half curse, half growl. He spun, shielding Felíne from their hidden assailant, and set her on her feet behind the protective girth of an oak.
She trembled. “Kal. You’re hurt.”
Felíne reached up a hand toward the arrow shaft that was lodged in the leather of his vest, but Kal was quicker. He fisted the arrow with one hand and jerked it free, grunting.
“Goddess above, you idiot! You could bleed out!” Felíne cried as she shoved her palm against the wound.
Kal’s focus was elsewhere. “It hit a rib. The head wasn’t buried deep enough to damage. Stay here.”
Before she could protest, he disappeared. Felíne glanced down at her shaking hand, slickened with Kal’s blood. If he got himself killed, she would never forgive him.
The wood went eerily silent. The only sound was the sighing of the breeze through the boughs’ rustling leaves. Her harried breathing was overloud. She strained, wishing, not for the first time, that she had the heightened senses of a second form to tell her about her surroundings.
Come on, Kal. Where are you?
A few tense minutes later, she heard a scuffle, followed by a yelp too high-pitched to be Kal’s.
Felíne risked a peek behind the trunk of the tree. There, across from the clearing where they’d initially settled, Kal emerged from the brush, dragging something big behind him. Something big and squirming.
“I’m sorry! Shit, ow. Shit!”
Not something, someone.
Kal flung the yelping shurii to the side and leaned over, brandishing a curved knife. “Watch your fucking mouth,” he growled.
The shurii curled on the ground, covering its head. “Sorry,” came the muffled reply.
“I could have killed you, Penn. What the fuck?”
The young man, Penn, poked his head out from under his arms, white-blond hair sticking out in every direction. “Me? I could have killed you!”
Kal huffed and stuffed his knife back into its sheath. “Not with that shot. You put a damn hole in my leather, though. And you scared my…Kitty.”
His Kitty?
Felíne stepped out from behind the tree.
Their would-be attacker couldn’t have been older than seventeen.
He had the gangly limbs of a fawn and the barest hint of hair darkening his otherwise smooth chin.
Eyes the color of a spring sky peeked up at her.
They were fringed with dark lashes, a surprising contrast to the pale hair on his head.
Pink crept into his fair cheeks. “I’m sorry for the fright, miss.
I saw you were bound, and when I got closer, he grabbed you up, and… well.”
Kal rolled his eyes. “You thought you’d stop me having my way with her?”
“Kalevar!”
Penn’s deeper blond eyebrows came together in defiance. “That’s right.”
Kal laughed darkly, and Felíne shoved him, no longer feeling sorry for his injury. She bent to help Penn to his feet. “Don’t listen to him,” she said to the boy. “He’s a brute.”
Penn stood, towering over her, and brushed leaves and twigs off his clothes. He gave her a sheepish smile. “That he is, miss. But I didn’t recognize him. If I’d known it was Kal, I wouldn’t have fired.”
Felíne looked questioningly to the broody man next to her. “Oh? I’m starting to think maybe he deserved it.”
Kal bent to whisper in her ear. “I’ll remember you said that.”
A pleasant chill skittered down Felíne’s spine.
“Why are you out here in the first place, Penn?”
The boy straightened. “Rask put me on watch.”
Felíne had to concentrate to keep from flinching at the name.
Kal frowned, sighed, and then shook his head.
Penn swelled. “I’m ready, Kal. I’m plenty old enough to take watch on my own.”
“It’s not your age, Penn,” Kal said as he swung his pack onto Sig’s saddle. “If I’d actually meant you harm, you’d be dead. I’ll talk with Rask. I’m surprised your mother allowed it.”
“But—”
Kal’s hard stare cut Penn’s argument off at the knees.
The boy’s head fell forward. Kal set a broad hand on his shoulder.
“You’re stealthy as a grimalkin, kid,” he said, tone sincere.
“But that shot needs work, and you’ve more to learn before you’re on your own.
” He fingered the new hole in his vest. “I need good men, and I can’t use you if you’re blinded by a boy’s pride. ”
Penn nodded, determination replacing his indignation. Kal returned the gesture, satisfied.
“Good,” he said. “Now, how about you lead us the rest of the way? It’s been a trek, and I can’t recall the easy path.”
Penn strode off, clearly happy to be useful once again.
“I thought you said you knew the way,” Felíne murmured once Penn was out of earshot.
Kal winked and reached for Felíne’s hand, holding Sig’s reins in the other. He dropped his voice so only she could hear. “I do. But young men are eager to please.”
Felíne quirked a brow, unable to keep from teasing him if only to alleviate her growing unease. “Oh? And what about rakish grown men prone to frequent brooding? Are they also eager to please?”
Kal grinned. “Particularly when pleasing unpredictably foolish grown women.”
Felíne sniffed. “How unfortunate. I don’t know anyone who fits that description.”
“Shame,” Kal said as he led them after Penn. “I happen to know someone who’s got a thing for hot baths and soft beds.”
Felíne’s trepidation grew with every additional step she took through the thickening trees of Stillwater Wood, her earlier gaiety long since sobered.
Had she been exploring on her own, she’d have found the forest charming.
It teemed with life. Birds with vibrant plumes twittered excitedly in the treetops.
Squirrels flashing bushy tails launched from branches, dazzling them with their aerial acrobatics as they chased fellow rodents.
The earthen smell of rich soil and fallen foliage hung in the air like a sweet fog, punctuated only by a fragrant breeze that hinted at nearby freshwater. It was a magical place.
Yet Felíne felt as though she were marching through a haunted glen to her own funeral pyre.
Her jaw clenched, limbs stiff as she trudged after Kal and young Penn.
She zipped her gold coin along the chain around her neck distractedly.
When that failed to ease her worry, she busied her fingers by combing through Sig’s coarse crimson mane to stop their trembling.
The great horse pressed his velvet nose to her hair and gave her a soft whuff.
Kal glanced back at her. The filtered light softened the hard planes of his handsome face, but his brow remained heavy, eyes black as pitch. They landed on her with concern. “Alright, Kitty?”
No. Felíne cleared her throat. “Fine. A little sick is all.”
It wasn’t a lie. But she wasn’t referencing the nearly disastrous concoction of poisonous herbs she’d ingested the previous night.
Her stomach roiled with the uncertainty of what she would face when they reached the Cozened stronghold.
With what would happen when she came face to face with her so-called brother, Rask.
When he looked upon her with confusion that turned to understanding that morphed to anger as he realized she was not his sister, Railah.
When Kal’s tentative affection, a thing she’d unwillingly begun to crave, transformed into the icy bite of betrayal as he learned she’d been lying to him this whole time.
Felíne stumbled, the toe of her boot catching on a hidden branch. Her knees hit the soft, leafy forest floor. Sig jerked at the sudden movement but stopped, lowering his head to blow hot, horsey breath in her face. Emotion choked her, and she blinked away tears.
Then Kal was there, kneeling before her.
“Hey,” he said, gently taking her hand. He turned it over, brushing away a fleck of mud that caked her palm.
Felíne’s lip trembled, and she bit down on it. Pull it together, she chided herself. She couldn’t fall apart now.
Kal removed his leather glove and swept a wave of hair out of her face with the whisper of his strong fingers.
His touch slid from her temple to her chin, slowly angling it until she had no choice but to look at him.
The churning dark sea in his eyes pulled her in like an anchorless buoy caught in a rip tide.
“Hey,” he said again, deep voice quiet and sincere. “Talk to me, Kitty girl.”
Felíne swallowed thickly. She tried to look away, but his bottomless gaze held her fast. “Penn will lose us,” she attempted lamely.
Kal remained steadfast, unyielding. “Let us be lost. I know the way.”
“But…”
“I’ve got you, Kitty,” he said. “Do you trust that? Can you trust me?”
Felíne couldn’t stop the tears welling. She did. She trusted Kal. She was the untrustworthy one, and that knowledge unraveled her. His kindness, closeness, and compassion…it was wasted on her. Felíne could never have him.
Kal searched her face, and she didn’t know what he found there. “Talk to me,” he urged.
Could she? Could she bring herself to tell him?
To truly trust him and trust that he would safeguard the damning truth about her?
He was extending an invitation, whether he knew its depths or not.
Was he capable of looking past her title and the atrocities committed by her blood? Felíne wasn’t sure.
“I’m afraid…”
The dark sea churned, a glimmer of gold breaking the surface, the monster beneath stirring. Kal’s lips were a breath away from her own. The warmth from his lungs suffused hers, sending a rolling wave of heat into her chest, down her limbs.
“Give me your fears, Kitty,” he breathed. “I’ve got you.”
Then Kal’s lips touched hers. It was tentative. Soft. Inquisitive.
Felíne sighed, her worry leaving her on an exhale, and Kal took it in, true to his word. She pressed closer to him, selfishly eager, answering.
It was all the encouragement he needed. Kal’s hand cupped her face, his fingers weaving into the thick of her hair, pulling her in. His tongue touched her lips, and she opened them on a gasp. He swept inside, hungry to taste her.