Chapter 10 #2
Even as he says it, the ground gives a low, ominous groan.
I feel it in my teeth.
“Fuck,” I breathe. “We have to get them out of there.”
“The wards around the settlement should—”
As if in answer, a boulder the size of a car breaks loose from the upper slope and begins to roll.
It takes an agonizing half-second to start moving, stone grinding over stone.
Then it picks up speed.
“Dagan!”
“I see it,” he snarls, wings flaring half-open.
He’s fast, but the rock is faster. And Dagan’s instinct isn’t to shield the buildings—it’s to plant himself between them and the fall, which is noble and also utterly terrifying because if that thing hits him, I don’t care how Demon he is, he’s going to feel it—
“Oona, stay—”
“Don’t you dare finish that sentence,” I snap.
The earth is screaming under my feet now, the slope one long, rising wail.
Time does that weird stretchy thing.
All the training, all the fieldwork, every diagram I’ve ever studied of slope failures and rockslides snaps into place in my head.
Undercut ledge there.
Natural catchment there.
Shear plane here.
I bolt down the ridge past Dagan, angling toward a narrow lip of rock that juts out from the hillside.
“Alina!” he roars. “No!”
Too late.
The air whips past my face as I skid to a stop at the edge of the ledge, boots digging for purchase in the loose scree.
The boulder is thundering toward us now, chewing up earth and smaller stones, angling straight toward the settlement.
“Come on, come on,” I mutter, shoving both hands down, fingers splayed in the dirt. “Talk to me. Tell me where to push.”
The rock under my palms is vibrating.
Not with ordinary tremors.
With power.
With him.
With us.
I close my eyes and push—not with muscles, but with that strange new sense that woke up the moment Dagan bit me.
It’s like grabbing the fault line itself and shoving.
The ground bucks.
The boulder jolts sideways.
Just enough.
It slams past the settlement, hitting the hollow below instead of the cluster of buildings, sending up a mountain of dust and a spray of smaller debris.
People scream and scatter—but they’re scattered, not crushed.
I sag forward, gasping.
Strong arms close around me from behind, hauling me back from the crumbling edge.
“What did I say about staying by my side?” Dagan snarls against my ear, voice shaking.
He cages me against the sheer stone wall, one hand braced beside my head, the other locked around my waist.
His wings flare wide, blocking out half the sky, feathers trembling with the leftover surge of power.
I can feel his heart pounding against my back.
“You said a lot of things,” I manage, lungs burning. “You’re welcome, by the way.”
He turns me in his arms so fast my feet leave the ground.
His eyes are wild.
Not glowing with power, but with something darker. Fiercer.
“You could have been crushed,” he growls. “Buried. Torn from me before the bond has even settled.”
“But I wasn’t,” I say, planting a hand flat on his chest. His heart slams against my palm. “And the buildings are still standing. That matters, Dagan. Those people matter.”
His throat works.
He presses his forehead to mine, breath hot and ragged.
“You moved the earth.”
“We moved it,” I correct softly. “You and me. Together.”
For a heartbeat, neither of us moves.
The Marches hum under my boots, calmer now, like a muscle that’s finally relaxed.
Dust hangs in the air, glittering in the late light. A distant chorus of voices rises from below—shouts, relief, the crackle of people realizing they’re still alive.
His hand slides up my spine, big and warm, fingers splaying between my shoulder blades.
“Do not do that again,” he says.
“You mean save people?” I arch a brow. “Wrong girl to ask that of, Dirt Lord.”
Something in his face breaks then.
Not in a bad way.
In a finally way.
“You infuriate me,” he murmurs, and his thumb strokes along my jaw with aching gentleness. “You terrify me. You steady me.”
My breath stutters.
“That sounds like a you problem,” I whisper, but the words wobble.
I’ve been staring at his mouth without meaning to. Full, stern, usually pressed into a line. Now it’s so close I can feel his breath on my lips.
“Alina,” he says, my name a growl and a prayer at once. “Oona.”
The zareth between us flares.
Warmth rushes up from the ground, through my boots, my legs, flooding my chest. Like the whole damn valley is exhaling into us.
Then he kisses me.
Not careful like the first time.
Not measured.
He slams his mouth to mine with a desperation that steals my breath, one hand gripping the back of my neck, the other banded around my waist, pulling me up against him as if he would graft me into his bones.
I gasp, and he takes advantage, deepening the kiss, tongue stroking into my mouth with a hunger that makes my knees weak.
The stone at my back is cool and solid. His body is hot and unyielding. The contrast is dizzying.
I fist my hands in the front of his tunic, clinging like he’s the only stable thing in a world that keeps shifting under my feet.
Which, I guess, he is.
The earth hums louder, like it’s pleased.
When he finally tears his mouth from mine, we’re both breathing like we just sprinted the length of the Marches.
His forehead rests against mine again, our noses almost touching.
His wings curl in, sheltering us in a little cocoon of black feather and stone.
“First,” he says hoarsely, “I am going to replace every stabilizing ward around that settlement and ensure no other slope can betray us.”
“Good,” I manage, lips tingling. “Sounds very responsible of you.”
“Then,” he continues, eyes burning into mine, “I am taking you back to The Barrow. And I am not letting you out of our bed until I have recovered from the sight of you nearly falling into a fissure.”
Heat slams through me so hard I have to bite back a whimper.
“That’s a lot of bed rest, Lord of Earth,” I say, trying for lightness, failing.
His mouth curves against mine in the ghost of a smile.
“For once,” he murmurs, brushing a soft kiss to the corner of my mouth, “I am willing to be indulgent.”
I roll my eyes, but my heart is doing backflips because inside my head, or maybe it’s my heart, I hear what he’s not saying aloud.
Mate.
Viyella.
Mine.
All of this started as a crisis, a bargain, a desperate attempt to stop the world from literally tearing itself apart.
But pressed here between stone and Demon, his heartbeat thundering against my palm and the ground quiet at last beneath my feet, I have a thought.
Maybe this isn’t just about me saving Nightfall.
Maybe this is about me saving Dagan, and him saving me too.