Chapter 30
THIRTY
SOREIA
We don’t make it to shelter.
The poisoned ground offers no comfort, but comfort isn’t what either of us needs. He takes me down against the base of a collapsed wall, hands rough and urgent, mouth claiming mine with the same precision he applies to combat.
I let him. Meet his intensity with my own, fingers digging into his shoulders, hips rising to meet his.
This isn’t gentle. It never is with him. But it’s deliberate in ways that transcend pure hunger. He pays attention to my responses—notes when I gasp, adjusts when I tense, finds angles that make me arch against him with sounds I’d be embarrassed by if I could think clearly enough to care.
He’s learned my body the way he learned his hunting grounds. Systematically. Thoroughly.
The thought sends a fresh surge of heat through my blood.
“Harder.” The word escapes without filtering through conscious thought.
He obliges. His rhythm shifts, intensifies, drives the air from my lungs with each thrust. My magic flickers at the edges of my awareness—not responding to threat, not anchoring endings, just...
aware. Heightened by the physical sensation, by the proximity, by the bond thrumming between us.
I come apart around him with a cry I can’t suppress. Feel him follow moments later, his body shuddering against mine, his breath ragged against my throat.
We stay tangled together as the aftershocks fade. His weight pressing me into fouled earth, my hands tracing patterns across his scarred back.
“The ground is disgusting.” My voice comes out steadier than expected.
He huffs a sound that might be amusement. “You said harder. Location wasn’t specified.”
“Next time I’ll be more precise.”
“Next time I’ll find a wall that’s still standing.”
I turn my head, press my lips to his jaw. Not affection—not exactly. More like marking. Claiming the same way he claims.
His stillness sharpens.
“We should keep moving.” The words contradict his body language. He hasn’t made any effort to separate from me. “More constructs ahead.”
“We should.” I don’t move either. “They’re not going anywhere.”
“No.” His hand slides up my side, traces the curve of my ribs with attention that has nothing to do with threats. “They’re not.”
We eventually disentangle. Pull ourselves together, check our weapons and supplies, assess the terrain ahead with the professional focus of people who know the job isn’t finished.
But there’s a shift in the silence between us now. An understanding that didn’t exist before—or existed, but hadn’t been named.
I walk beside him as we advance on the next cluster of nests. Not behind, where I’d be protected. Not ahead, where I’d be vulnerable. Beside.
He adjusts his pace to match mine without comment. A small accommodation that means more than words could convey.
“The god knows we’re coming.” I speak without looking at him, my attention fixed on the distant shimmer that marks divine activity. “I sense its attention. Like pressure against the back of my skull.”
“Afraid?”
“No.” The answer surprises me with its honesty. “Aware.”
He pauses at a ridge that overlooks the next section of corrupted terrain. Below us, at least a dozen constructs mill around a structure that must have been a farmhouse before everything went wrong. “What do you sense from it? The god?”
I focus inward. Let my magic extend toward that distant pressure, reading the quality of the attention directed at us.
“Rage. And beneath that—something older. The kind of dread that comes from watching the inevitable approach.”
“Fear.”
“It expected the Abomination to end us. Expected the God-Beast variants to finish what the Abomination started. Instead, we killed them all and kept coming.” I look at him. “Its defenses are crumbling. The distance it relied on is shrinking. And it’s starting to understand we’re not going to stop.”
His expression doesn’t change, but I’ve learned to read the subtle shifts. The slight tightening around his eyes that indicates satisfaction. The fractional lift of his chin that suggests anticipation.
“Good.”
One word. It’s enough.
We clear the farmhouse nest with practiced violence.
Kaster handles the constructs while I anchor each death, our rhythm established through repetition.
The creatures fight with wild abandon—hurling themselves at us without coordination, without strategy, driven by divine command to attack even when attack means certain death.
They all die anyway.
Twenty-three. Twenty-four. Twenty-five. The count climbs as the afternoon shadows lengthen, and the territory that teemed with divine constructs empties body by body.
I anchor the twenty-sixth kill and take stock. My magic flows freely, responding to my will without cost or hesitation. My body aches from exertion—the mating enhanced my endurance, not my physical conditioning—but it’s the ache of productive effort rather than panicked flight.
Kaster finishes the twenty-seventh with a strike that severs the construct’s spine. He watches it fall, then turns to me with blood on his hands and death in his eyes.
The sight should horrify me. Would have horrified the woman I was before this hunt began.
Instead, I cross to him and cup his face in both hands. Pull him down and press my mouth to his with heat that hasn’t diminished despite everything we’ve already done today.
He responds instantly. Hands finding my hips, body pressing against mine, the copper taste of divine blood mingling between our lips.
“Twenty-seven.” I pull back far enough to speak. “That’s more than we killed yesterday and the day before combined.”
“The population is thinning.” His voice carries that low rasp that makes my pulse kick. “Fewer reinforcements. The god is hoarding resources for the endgame.”
“Final confrontation?”
“Likely.”
I process that information. The logical part of my mind—the part that’s kept me alive through years of impossible odds—notes that a final confrontation means maximum danger. The god will throw everything it has left at us, desperate to eliminate the threat we represent.
The rest of me doesn’t care.
“Then we keep pushing.” I release his face, step back to survey the terrain ahead. “Give it less time to prepare. Force the confrontation before it’s ready.”
“Aggressive strategy.”
“Effective strategy.” I meet his gaze. “Unless you’d prefer to let it dictate terms?”
The curve of his mouth carries an edge that sends heat pooling in my core. “No.”
“Then we keep moving.”
The sun drops toward the horizon as we advance deeper into corrupted ground. The divine pressure against my awareness intensifies with every mile, the god’s attention pressing harder as we eliminate its outer defenses.
It knows.
It knows we’re coming, knows its shields are failing, knows that the mating it tried to prevent has made us into exactly what it feared. A predator dragon who makes kills count and an Anchor witch who makes deaths stick.
A combination it has no answer for.
The constructs we encounter grow more frantic as we progress. Variants that seem half-formed, rushed into existence without the time or care the earlier models received. They fight with terrified ferocity, driven by divine command to attack even as their instincts scream retreat.
I anchor each death and feel the god flinch.
That’s a new sensation—one I don’t entirely understand. But every ending I lock into place sends a ripple through that distant attention. Pain, perhaps. Loss. The severing of connections it didn’t realize could be severed.
Let it hurt.
Let it understand what permanence feels like from the other side.
We make camp as darkness claims the blighted landscape. A structure that might have been a granary offers walls solid enough to block wind and roof intact enough to shelter from weather that probably won’t come.
Kaster secures the perimeter with his usual thoroughness while I inventory our supplies. Enough provisions for another two days. Water enough if we ration. Weapons that don’t need replenishment—his claws and my magic serve us better than any manufactured tools.
He returns to find me laying out bedding—such as it is—against the granary’s back wall.
“Perimeter clear. The constructs won’t approach tonight.” He settles beside me, close enough that our shoulders touch. “Their fear reaches me from here.”
“Fear of you, or fear of the god’s punishment for failure?”
“Does it matter?”
“Probably not.” I lean into him, letting the warmth settle into bones that have worked hard today. “Either way, they won’t attack.”
His arm comes around me. Draws me against his side with the easy confidence I’ve grown accustomed to. No hesitation. No uncertainty. Simply... taking what he wants.
I let him take.
In the dark, with his arm heavy across my waist, I listen to his breathing slow toward sleep.
He doesn’t quite get there. The predator in him won’t rest completely, not with threats still active in the territory around us. But he relaxes against me in a way that feels like trust. Lets his guard down far enough to be vulnerable.
For him, that’s more significant than words.
For me, it’s enough.