Behind the Waterfall
ELENA – REACH’S END
My first thought as I awake is that I’m on New Terra. The alarms are going off and I need to evacuate, but I can’t move my arms. I can’t even open my eyes.
Then the world reboots.
I’m on Xytheos. Large arms hold me, and hot breath hits my neck. I try to fight him, but everything is sluggish. Clumsy. We sprint through cold, dead corridors until the air and the life of the jungle hit us.
He tires of my struggling and sets me on my feet, holding me up with both hands as my useless legs collapse. I’m shaking so hard my teeth chatter. My knuckles ache. Whatever I did in the missing hours, my body kept the receipts.
I try to say something, but all that comes out is a hoarse whimper as I finally process his scent.
Even without opening my eyes, I know it's Rythar.
He presses his forehead to mine as he runs his fingers along the side of my head.
I force my eyelids open, and for a moment, all I can see is the ember fire in his eyes.
“You are safe,” he says, voice like gravel. “With me. Only with me.”
He straightens, scanning the horizon. Beyond the courtyard, a ring of Vorak’s men waits—dozens, maybe more, all of them watching, none daring to step forward. The jungle at the edge of the walls is shifting, vines rippling, the paths growing clearer by the second.
Vorak’s men bow, one by one.
My mind catches up. The last thing I remember is feeling the psychic connection to Rythar explode as Vorak touched me. Then I must have fought. Then Rythar killed Vorak and came to me.
Rythar lifts me in his arms again and carries me through the line, never once glancing left or right. The warriors avert their eyes.
Wherever his boots fall, the ground blooms. I see the lines of loyalty changing in real time, the way the runners cluster around him. The Green Reach is reassembling itself with every step.
I clutch his chest, dizzy with the connection between us and the power I feel coming through it. Now, I can feel the new territory pouring into Rythar, filling every scar and hollow of his body with power. With every breath, I feel more alert.
The jungle opens into a wide clearing, the ground moist, the air tight. Rythar stands at the center, face closed off to every emotion but rage. He plants me by his side, his hand never leaving my waist. A circle of warriors rings us, a hundred silent bodies all bracing for the fallout.
Drenz is at the front, kneeling. My eyes sting with relief that he’s still alive.
But he hasn’t fully recovered from the weapon on the landing pad.
He holds the kneel, barely. He sways, corrects, sways again.
Behind him, the command staff kneels too, most in the same shape.
They were on the platform when I was taken.
Rythar’s eyes move down the line, then back to Drenz. “Where are the rest?”
“The medical wing,” Drenz says, head bowed. “The Concord representatives used a shield weapon that took their hearing and sight. Some cannot stand on their own yet. Some have not woken. Others did not survive the landing pad.” He keeps his head down. “None of us has fully recovered.”
Rythar’s voice cracks through the air. “Why did you let them take her?”
Drenz doesn’t hesitate. “They presented Concord documentation. An order from you to transfer her to the High Lord for protection, which they delivered personally. Clearly, it was a lie. It was my mistake.”
Rythar steps forward. “Your mistake could have cost me my mate.”
Drenz bows lower, forehead nearly in the mud. “I accept all consequences.”
Rythar’s fists clench, veins bulging in his arms. “If you cannot hold the line, you are of no use to me.”
I speak quickly, before he can speak a punishment. “It wasn’t Drenz.”
The words hang in the air, impossible to call back. Every head pivots to me, every set of eyes wide with shock until they remember themselves and look away.
I square my shoulders and keep my voice even. “I chose to go. The decision was mine. My fault.”
The circle tightens, the warriors’ faces unreadable.
Rythar doesn’t take his eyes off me. “You defy your warlord,” he growls, low and raw.
I shake my head. “I obeyed the system you serve. Could Vorak have sent Concord Councilmen on his own? Could he have faked that? Because if he couldn’t, then the orders came right from the top.”
Rythar pulls me closer, and Stone is in my mind, drawing me to him. The urge to drop to my knees is overwhelming, but I force myself to stand tall.
“You are mine,” Rythar says, voice sharp. “You obey no one else over me.”
I look him in the eye, defiant and shaking. “They said they brought your orders. We couldn’t reach you. They said it was an emergency situation. I had to make a decision.”
He bares his teeth in a snarl. For a second, I think he'll grab me, crush me. The bond between us is a white-hot ache, my body half a step from collapse. I don’t back down.
Rythar turns to Drenz. Drenz lowers his head until it nearly touches the mud.
“My life is forfeit,” Drenz says. “End it now, and the failure is paid.”
“No.” Rythar’s voice is flat. “The weapon they used on you was used on me. In Vorak’s stronghold.
” His eyes roam over his warriors. “It would have killed a lesser male. It nearly took me. I stood again only because the jungle poured into me. Rise, Drenz. I will not lose the best Ex O on Xytheos to Vorak’s scheme. I have further orders for you.”
Drenz lifts his head slowly.
“The device is still in Vorak’s stronghold,” Rythar says. “Find it. Confiscate it. Bring it to the fortress, intact. No one else touches it.”
“It will be done,” Drenz says.
Rythar turns to the other warriors. “Bring order to the new section of the Green Reach. And find Vorak’s former mate.”
They bow as one.
He turns back to me, voice softer but no less intense. “Come.”
He doesn’t wait for me to follow. He knows I will.
The mate bond is pulling us together like two burning suns in collision.
He walks out of the clearing, the muscles in his back bunching with each step.
The warriors part before him silently, not daring to look up.
I follow, my heart beating so loud I can barely hear my own footsteps.
I can feel the crowd’s verdict forming before we’re even out of sight. The warlord reclaims his mate, the old order is restored. I want to tell them I walked into the Council’s hands with my eyes open. That I wasn’t fooled.
But Rythar moves too fast.
The instant we’re clear of the clearing, he swings me up against his chest and strides through the trees, ignoring the beaten paths. The jungle closes behind us, branches knitting together in a way that I know is deliberate. Rythar can use the whole forest to hide us from the rest of the world.
The fury still rolls off him. I don’t fight him, but I don’t cling, either. I keep my head high and let the wind whip my hair around my face, grateful it’s hiding the emotion.
He runs. I hold on. Being near him brings a heat that makes my skin tighten with need.
The sound of water grows louder until it drowns out everything else.
A final stand of ferns parts at his approach, and the world I look up at is a sheer cliff with a waterfall pouring over the edge.
The mist rises in clouds. Rythar is surefooted as he carries me over wet rocks.
He finds a narrow ledge behind the fall, nearly invisible until we’re right on it.
I turn my face into his chest as he ducks through the edge of the curtain of water with me. The water is cool and refreshing.
Inside, the air is warm and still, and the ground is springy.
A low blue moss glows underfoot, soft and strange—something I’ve never seen before.
The cave goes back farther than I’d guessed.
The smooth walls are dry once we’re out of the spray.
Someone has hauled in furs, a low bed, a stash of food, and something that smells like cinnamon and fire.
He sets me down on my feet, his chest to my face. We’re alone. The world outside is just a roar of waterfall noise. I wipe the water dripping from my face.
For a second, neither of us moves.
He studies me, eyes flicking over every part of me—my torn robe, my face, my arms. I see the way his chest heaves, the barely checked violence in every line of his body.
I meet his stare and refuse to flinch. “Did you have to get me soaked?” I ask.
“It washed away any jungle toxins,” he says, eyes narrowing.
I think of the first time we bathed together.
After he showed me some of the treetop catwalks.
I open my mouth to say something, anything to cut the tension, but he comes at me fast. One second I’m standing, daring him to do something, and the next I’m hoisted up against the wall, his hands locked around my upper arms, his chest pinning me. Now we’re face-to-face.
“I told you to stay in the fortress.” His voice is shaking. Not from rage. From what came before the rage.
I glare back. “I did what I thought was right. The connection to you was muted. For far too long. It had to be the High Lord interfering. I thought he would kill you. I thought Sophia would die. Maybe she’s already dead.
” I choke the words out as hot tears spill from my eyes.
I’ve held in every emotion for days, and now it’s coming out.
“Sophia is clever. She hides. Even from the High Lord,” Rythar growls, but he goes still when he sees the tears. Like something inside him is breaking. "I told you what would happen if you put yourself between me and danger again."