Chapter 9 Goldcaps
GOLDCAPS
Iwake up the next morning warmer than I thought I’d be.
Not because the forest has lightened. It hasn’t. The Shadowed Woods remain steeped in its eternal twilight, like Earth after its bright sun set, but I feel the shift.
So it’s morning, then, or whatever passes for it here.
I’m lying on my side, wrapped up in Thane’s cloak, my hair a knotted mess beneath my head. Sitting up slowly, I brush one of the tangled snarls away from my left horn. The movement rouses Binx. He yawns widely, showing off his adorable fangs.
I ruffle his shadowy fur, glancing around for Thane. I expect to find him up in the trees, slightly surprised to see him standing about three demon’s lengths away, fiddling with the pouches on his belt.
Once I’ve used my claws to smooth out my hair, I gather the cloak around myself and rise, padding closer to him. “You should have woken me.”
He glances over his shoulder showing no surprise of his own that I’m up. “You needed the rest.”
I remove the cloak, holding it out to him. Don’t say thank you, don’t say thank you… “This is yours.”
He hesitates, as though he hears the words I really want to say. Then he takes the cloak from my hands, flips it over his shoulders, and slings it back on. Once he has, he grabs something near his feet.
It’s the canteen.
“And this one’s yours,” Thane echoes.
I blink. Glancing down at his waist, I see the one he let me drink out of yesterday. “Mine?”
He nods once and presses it into my hands. It’s newer than the one he drank from last night, the leather uncracked, the seal tight.
“You’ll need it,” he adds. “We’re moving out soon.”
I turn it over, surprised. “I don’t have anything to trade you for it.”
His mouth quirks, just barely. “Not yet you don’t.”
I glance up at him.
“When you find gold of your own,” he says lightly, “you can give me one. Believe me, Alana, you don’t want to be in debt to anyone in Noctavara.”
Oh, trust me, Thane. I know.
I don’t know how long we’ve been walking when it happens.
The funny thing—or, really, not so funny thing—is that I feel it before I hear it. The w woods around us go quiet; not peaceful, but more like alert. Like everything lurking inside of it has just decided to hold its breath.
Binx stiffens against my calf, radiating concern. Danger. That’s the emotion singing down the bond between me and my soul-pet. He senses danger.
I open my mouth to warn Thane, but he’s already moving.
“Stay behind me,” he says, voice light. Too light for the way his hand drops to the hilt of his sword in between steps.
Right as he draws it, something lunges from the shadows.
It’s fast. Too fast. A blur of teeth and something dark and hungry aimed right at my throat.
All I see is wood-colored skin, rags that match the shadows, and a dark gold, crusty hat covering its gnarled head.
The creature itself would come up to my navel if it was standing.
It must have some powerful legs because its flight would have it carrying at my throat, fangs bared as though it plans on ripping it out before devouring the rest of me.
Thane steps into it.
The sword whistles and the steel flashes.
The sound it makes when his blade connects with the beast isn’t a clean slice.
It’s wet. Final. Immoral or not, the creature hits the ground in two distinct pieces, the gold cap falling off of its separated head before the body itself dissolves into black smoke that joins the shadows.
I barely have time to register that when another comes from the left.
Then another.
Thane doesn’t hesitate. He pivots, precise and brutal, sword moving like it’s an extension of his arm. There’s no wasted motion as he slaughters the fae beasts. Each one disintegrates once it’s dead, and I lose count after the third one.
That was my mistake. Watching Thane, I made the mistake of not looking for other threats.
One of the fierce monsters managed a swipe that cut through the long sleeve of my dress before Thane swung his sword.
Unfortunately, that gave another one the chance to swipe at Thane, finding the underside of his sword arm.
Finally, it stops. Thane steps back, chest rising hard, dark curls falling forward into his amber eyes. He doesn’t look winded the way a human would. He looks… sharpened. Like the violence woke something in him and now it’s purring in a way that I expect from Binx.
Binx, meanwhile, makes a low, offended sound at my feet. The ungez’s fluffy shadow-tail lashes once, twice, and his white eyes narrow at the gold-colored hat that’s all that’s left on the creatures.
“You can stop glaring at it,” I murmur. “They’re all gone.”
Binx chitters, indignation humming through the bond that the beast tried to attack. At the same time, I sense his approval that Thane was quick enough to end them all before they could.
I assure Binx that I’m okay—and then realize I’m lying to myself when the delayed sting catches up with me and, in response to the pain, I hiss through my teeth.
Thane’s gaze snaps to me. Lowering his sword down at his side, he stalks over to me.
“Show me,” he demands.
That’s not a request. It’s not a suggestion, either. It’s the kind of tone I’ve heard from Mom when I try to hide something from her… the kind that I know better than to ignore.
I shove my sleeve up and lift my arm reluctantly.
A thin line of blood beads along the top of my arm where something clawed me. It’s nothing deep, but it’s undeniable that the beast got me. As we look, my black blood is already slicking down toward my wrist.
In the dim twilight, it looks like shining ink.
Thane goes very still.
He doesn’t flinch like my mother did the first time she saw it.
Mom screamed then—full, human panic—because she’d spent a lifetime believing blood was supposed to be red, and because the sight of mine was another reminder that I was as much my father’s daughter as hers.
Though that didn’t really help, either, since Sombra demons don’t bleed black.
Only halflings do, as though that’s a hint of the shadows we can’t quite control like our demon parent.
“Interesting,” he says at last in a voice too careful to do anything other than get my heart racing.
I swallow, forcing myself calm. “What? It’s just blood.”
“It’s not the color I’m used to.” His gaze drags up from the cut to my face. “How bad does it hurt?”
“I’ve had worse.”
His jaw tightens like he doesn’t like that answer, but that doesn’t stop him from reaching for me.
That doesn’t, but my ungez might. Before Thane can touch me, Binx hisses, an ugly little sound that doesn’t belong to something that looks as cute as he is. His claws catch at my collar as if he’s preparing to launch himself.
Thane freezes mid-motion.
For a heartbeat, we all hold still: me, him, and my protective soul-pet.
Then Thane’s mouth curves.
“Ah,” he says, eyes flicking to Binx with open fascination. “So that’s what you are.”
Binx chitters at me with offense so sharp it feels like a jab under my ribs all because he doesn’t like the way the fae is staring at him now.
“He’s never seen an ungez,” I tell Binx under my breath. “And you hissed at him after he saved us.”
I don’t say thank you. I can’t. But despite the gratitude underlying my rebuke, he pays closer attention to Binx.
Thane’s brows lift. “Ungez?”
“It’s what Binx is. In Sombra, it means he bites first and asks questions never,” I say, and my tease comes out drier than I mean it to.
Binx makes a pleased, smug little noise at my description of him.
Thane nods. “It’s good. He’s obviously loyal to you.”
“Because he’s bonded to me,” I explain. That’s what it is.
Binx isn’t a pet the way humans mean it.
He’s a piece of my soul given claws and attitude and all because he picked me when I was a spawn.
“And it doesn’t hurt. Not really. Demons heal quickly.
” Quicker still if I could tap into my shadows. “I’ll be fine.”
“If you say so.”
I do. Tugging down my sleeve, hiding the cut, I use the toe of my boot to gesture at the cap left behind. “What were those things?”
Thane’s gaze shifts to it, and something in his face hardens. “Hunters.”
“Hunters of what?” I ask.
His eyes slide back to me. “Outsiders.”
I gulp. “Oh.”
There’s a slight flash in the depth of his amber gaze.
“They’re called goldcaps. If they have another name for the ferocious critters, I don’t know it.
They attack travelers, aiming to kill that which shouldn’t be killed.
And when they do?” Thane crouches down, using the point of his sword to lift up the crusted-over hat that goldcap was wearing.
“They dip their caps into the blood of their victims. That’s why they’re called goldcaps. ”
I frown. “Who bleeds gold?”
A quick flick of his wrist sends the cap back to the ground. After resheathing his sword, Thane shrugs his cloak back so that he can show me the long scratch down the underside of his forearm. “The fae of Noctavara do.”
The glimmering, golden line doesn’t look real. It looks like pure Earth sunlight distilled into a liquid smeared on his equally gold skin, seeping from a shallow cut on his arm where one of the creatures got him before he killed it.
“You’re hurt,” I gasp.
“It’s nothing.” He moves like he means to turn away.
Surging forward, I catch his wrist.
It’s stupid.
It’s reckless.
It’s—
His gaze snaps to where my fingers wrap around him.
Heat floods up my arm. Not from his skin—though he’s warm, absurdly warm—but from the jolt of contact, the way the bond in my chest reacts like a living thing.
I hold onto my essence so I don’t accidentally share it with Thane.
Throwing up a block, I refuse to take anything from my mate that he’s not aware he might be giving me in return.
But, still, I maintain the contact between us, stunned when Thane doesn’t pull away.
He looks down at my hand on his wrist, then up at my face. The brightness in his eyes sharpens into something almost hungry.