Chapter 16
Chapter
Sixteen
KAEL
Iwatch from a distance, rage coursing through me.
Usually the mountains hum to people with blood like mine. But today they echo the storm behind my sternum. I watch dark clouds blacken and curdle over the Starborn.
My emotions. My influence.
The younger ones—like Ash and even Mags—can’t do this.
I can’t help it, and I don’t want to.
Because this—this ceremony shouldn’t be happening. My tattoos burn and ache to the bone. Dark thoughts climb with the thunderheads.
I squeeze Tempest’s sides, nearly riding down into the mix to put an end to the travesty.
But something presses back against me. Something that feels like peace—calm and stable.
It radiates from Ash and his woman. Almost like the antidote to the chaos of resonance.
But could it be possible?
My mind wanders back to what my grandmother told me about my mother—a human woman—and my father, an exiled Sentinel. Me, the offspring of their accursed union.
That temptation got them both killed… and my brothers and I cast out as rejects, monsters. Even by our family.
My uncle’s words still pierce me. “Don’t ever come back. I can’t stand to look at you—a reminder of him. The monster who stole my sister.”
Memories that once seared barely sting now. An ancient ache I can’t forget, but almost too distant to feel.
And the Wakefield boys, the good people of Raven’s Ridge… who ambushed Clemson and Ruby. Who didn’t stop till they thought I was dead, too.
The last mistake most of them ever made.
My thoughts go to the thin band of alien alloy around Eliza’s wrist. Forged from ancient Sentinel tech brought to humans by my father. Transformed into something delicate and beautiful, a deadly reminder of past transgressions.
Like what I watch below—a wedding no one should bless.
I pat Tempest’s neck, the same storm behind my chest that climbs the sky. The wind picks up, swirling around me like my thoughts. Like the tension that keeps me suspended between destruction and inaction.
I could stop this now. I should.
My hand tightens on my leather holster, ready to make good on my promise to Ash. He, Mags, Clay, Wilton. The rest of the council couldn’t stop me if they tried.
A dust devil gathers in the distance. Dark and menacing. It’s me. Always has been. Too dangerous to be human. Too human to want anything less.
The glyphs on my flesh pulse and ache, incinerating to bone and marrow.
I glimpse purple chiffon and hazelnut curls. My chest tightens, distant thunder reflecting my desperate need.
Eliza.
I can never go back. Not now. Not after knowing how her soft body feels pressed against mine. Not after tasting her breath and feeling the steadiness of the heartbeat that regulated mine. Eased my pain, burned through me like purification.
I can’t do to her what Ash has done to his woman. Because with older ones like me, maybe the last of my kind, what I stand to awaken may not come solely from the mountains. It could come from the stars.
The thought shivers through me.
Still, I stay, spying from a distance. Hidden in shadow and mist, memorizing the only woman my flesh ever begged to cleave to.
I jam my knuckles into the saddle horn, using pain to regulate hunger. Without the dampener, it’s the only way. There is no alternative like Ash. There’s only staying and dying. Or worse, causing her more torment.
The swirl of her glossy locks, like a halo, in the breeze. Her heart-shaped face, cleft chin, and cinnamon freckles. Her thick pink lips that should be smiling. Would be—like sunshine piercing dark clouds—if it weren’t for me.
After the wedding party departs, she remains. My throat thickens. Tempest grows restless beneath me.
I could go to her. No one would know.
But the mountains would.
She walks among the petroglyphs, searching. Her hand grazes over one of the symbols.
I don’t breathe, waiting, watching what comes next. She pauses for a moment, skirt and hair whipping in the wind.
“You need to go inside, Eliza,” I scold under my breath. “Shield yourself from this. From me.”
The ache behind my chest is unbearable. Dark, rain-filled clouds threaten. I’m one look away from riding down there, sweeping her into my arms and racing away.
“All you have to do is look up, Eliza. Show you feel me.”
But her eyes no longer scan the treeline. Instead, she steps carefully among the rocks, searching for something.
For what?
She leans forward, pressing her palm to another stone. My flesh jumps. One symbol rushes through me—my name glyph.
God.
I clutch my chest, trying to hold back. Breathing through my nose and counting. In and out. Willing myself to have half the willpower of Mags or Ash.
Because if I take her now, I’ll never let her go. She won’t have a choice.
And I can’t be to her, what my father was to my mother.
Her body straightens, eyes wide, and she looks down at her hand. Then touches it again.
I grunt through the yearning, squeezing my eyes tight.
Never. I will never be like him.
The smell of burning flesh fills my nostrils. I grip my shoulder, fingers digging deep. She’s incinerating me and doesn’t even know it.
The dampener.
Suppression is the only way.
I barely form the thought before she wheels around, hurrying away, face turned toward angry rain clouds and the ranch house. Never looking back. Never looking at me.
My breath goes ragged. I have my answer. Tempest stamps her front hooves, hide twitching beneath me.
I lean forward, breathing hard and resting my head against her mane. Sucking in great gulps of air, I fight the anguish and sorrow surging through me. Worse than any snakebite or bullet wound.
And completely unnatural to my kind.
The pain of not answering the resonance.
Of not making Eliza mine.
I follow her from the treeline, not stopping until she’s safely back inside the house. But my thoughts are dark and dangerous.
Tempest prances restlessly, embodying the temptation gnawing at me. I’m on the knife’s point of transgression. Ready to burn down the world for one taste, one more moment with the woman who makes my blood sing.
Instead, I pull up the collar of my duster against the wind. I can’t stay. I should’ve never come back.
But the pull is like nothing I’ve ever felt before. It grinds me down to my core, demanding a sacrifice I refuse to make…
Because it’s not mine to make.
“Come on, Tempest,” I urge in the only language that truly calms the hot-blooded mare. The one older than memory itself. Taken from the glyphs carved in stone, etched into fields, and buried beneath my skin.
This language has to die with me, like it should have the Ancients.
Most Wildbloods say they’re long gone. I know better.
Ash and his woman awakened them. And I’ll be the one to pay the price for it.
I have no control over that.
But what I can control?
Eliza’s fate.
I won’t let her pay because of me.
I turn, winding back toward town. I’ll have that dampener. I’ll have it tonight, along with the others.
In working order.
Because if I don’t, I won’t survive this.
Maybe I don’t want to.
No matter what Mags and the rest of the council say.
But first, I have to say goodbye.
Proper.
The only way I can.
The only language she understands.
I dig my knees into Tempest’s sides, and she takes off like a bullet. I tug my hat low to keep it from flying away.
An hour later, a burning bouquet sits atop Eliza’s kitchen table in a large mason jar. All Castilleja. All declaring the thing I never can.
Their fragrance fills the room, sweet like fruit, salty like ocean air… the few times I remember visiting.
I place the cell phone she insisted I use next to it with a plastic thud. Had it in the saddlebag the whole time. Had to lie so she wouldn’t call… wouldn’t get the government men on me two inches from death.
Can’t imagine a greater prize, an object of more wonder to them, except perhaps, for my ancestors shrouded in fog and storm atop the mountains.
At the entrance, I pause, gripping the door jamb for one hesitant moment. I shouldn’t, but I can’t help myself. Taking her stairs two at a time, I let myself into her bedroom.
On top of her dresser, I find a thick pink ribbon, winding it around my hand and touching it to my nose.
Lavender and honey.
Like her.
Trespassing. Now stealing.
I’m an outlaw all the way. But I have to take a piece of her with me. To prove this wasn’t just a dream.
Back in the saddle, I ride like hell, ribbon tucked safely into my pocket as rain pelts my duster. The Starborn Range has vanished behind low-hanging clouds.
Like they’re hiding from me.
“Goodbye, Eliza Wakefield.” I let the name coil around me, settle behind my breastbone. “My medicine. My—”
I won’t let myself finish.
Can’t say it out loud.
My mate.
Behind me, a car engine cuts through. I glance over my shoulder.
I’m being followed.