Chapter Thirty-Six – Mira
Chapter Thirty-Six
Mira
The days passed in a pleasant blur, filled with travel and conversation. And the nights . . .
My face heated at the thought of how he took me in the darkness, sometimes gentle and slow, other times faster and rougher, but always stoking my passion to new heights. It was a little embarrassing how much I desired him. How much I craved him.
I’d hoped that it would be the opposite – that after our coupling he would have lost whatever hold he had over me. Instead, I couldn’t seem to get enough. Was that normal?
I glanced across the clearing, where Cassius was preparing a rabbit he had snared, heedless of the mess staining his fingers. Even that was attractive to me. Without Warriors to delegate to, it was clear just how capable he really was.
Striding deeper into the forest, I tried to focus on collecting firewood. But my attention soon began to drift back to Cassius.
The emotional distance I’d been waiting for . . . it hadn’t come. And now I was growing used to sharing a bedroll with him, trusting him enough to drift off to sleep in his strong arms. It might even be my favourite part of our newfound closeness – and that was downright terrifying.
Because physical intimacy was one thing. But growing attached to his presence, needing him close in other ways . . . That meant I was starting to care. Starting to truly mean the words I had said to him in that lake.
I’m yours .
Easy to say in the moment, but I hadn’t expected it to feel like this.
Hadn’t expected the softer, more attentive side to Cassius – the way he seemed willing to open up to me, sharing not just his body, but also precious insights about his past. Insights that made me feel as though he really could lay a claim to me.
When I returned from collecting firewood, I found Cassius throwing knives at a tree across the clearing – a skill that Jadis had taught him when we’d first travelled into the Wilds.
Jadis’s throws had been perfect, hitting the trunk dead centre.
Cassius’s were far less precise, but there was a faint smile on his face all the same.
I started to smile too, until I heard the thunderous sound of hoofbeats. I barely had the chance to turn before a hulking black stallion burst through the trees, its rider’s sword flashing down towards me.
Dropping the bundle of firewood, I rolled, only just avoiding the sword and the horse’s trampling hooves. Cassius sprinted across the clearing, his sword drawn, but he was too far away to help me.
The stallion turned and charged.
I ran for my life, cursing my decision to discard my sword by the fire.
I could hear Cassius shouting, but I blocked him out, focusing on the stallion galloping after me.
Its grunting breaths told me that it was gaining, but I didn’t dare look over my shoulder – and I didn’t try to run to Cassius, knowing that I would never make it in time.
My best chance of survival was to get out of the open.
I fought to calm my mind. To expand my awareness, until I was one with the forest around me.
The tree line was close – torturously close – when the stallion caught up to me. The rider’s sword arced through the air, but just as he was about to strike, vines wrapped around the horse’s hindquarters.
Horse and rider fell heavily to the ground with a thud that shook the nearby branches.
The swordsman rose to his feet almost immediately, picking up his discarded sword as he advanced on me with murder in his face. As he stepped out of the shadows, recognition speared through me, followed closely by horror.
No, no –
My hold over the vines shattered. I stared into his face, drinking it in like someone dying of thirst. His features were the same: his golden-brown skin, the determined slant of his mouth, the dark brows and hair. But his eyes . . .
There was something wrong with his eyes. They had never been this dark, and certainly never this furious, filled with rage and bloodlust–
‘What is this, Aric?’ I demanded, but he didn’t answer.
Merely lunged at me with his sword, and while the motion was beautiful and familiar in its elegance, this was something the Aric I’d known never would have done.
Raising a sword against an unarmed opponent went against everything he believed in. Everything he had ever taught me.
I dodged as best I could, reminded of the times we had sparred together in Aldara. He had taught me to dodge then too – taught me much like this, by swinging at me. But that had been a lesson.
This wasn’t.
Without a weapon, without the focus needed to summon my natural magic, I was no match for him. All I could do was keep backing away, hoping that my speed and reflexes might keep me alive for a few more moments.
‘Don’t you want to discard your blade?’ I shouted at him as I stumbled backwards. ‘Make this a fair fight?’
Aric didn’t answer, his sword swinging towards me with a speed and force that I wouldn’t be able to evade. I wanted to close my eyes, desperate to block out the sight of the hatred twisting his face. But I couldn’t look away from him as I waited for the blow to–
A bloody gash erupted as a silver knife sliced into his unprotected face. Aric whirled to face Cassius, who stood calmly with his sword drawn, his stance filled with challenge.
Despite Cassius’s height and steeliness, Aric’s burlier build gave him a clear advantage. Yet as I looked between them, I was reminded of a Kalurian axe against a Ravalian dagger. Both deadly in their own ways.
And if they fought each other . . . only one would be left alive.
I closed my eyes, but this time I wasn’t focusing on the forest. I was focusing on the gentle breeze swirling around me, willing it to strengthen until it was no longer a breeze but more of a gale, whipping my hair into a frenzy as I stood in the centre of its vortex.
Aric was running towards Cassius now, charging with his sword extended–
I raised my hands and redirected the gale. Unleashing the full force of it on Aric’s distant form–
Sending him careening into a nearby tree with a sickening thud. The magic slipped out of my grip.
‘ Aric! ’
I ran to his side, panic pounding at my skull. His skin was pale as his chest rose and fell–
Then stopped altogether. Along with his laboured breathing.
I took hold of his shoulders and shook him. He didn’t move.
‘Gods no . . .’ Tears dripped down my face and onto his.
I was furious with him – for abandoning me, for blaming me, for whatever this was – but I didn’t want him to die.
The thought of him dying was more than I could handle.
‘Wake up, Aric! You have to wake up!’ I pounded on his chest, but nothing happened.
Then I remembered what Sionnach had done when a wounded shifter had stopped breathing.
Pinching Aric’s nose, I tilted his head back and pressed my lips against his, blowing air into his mouth.
Not enough. It’s not enough on its own –
I pounded on his chest, but this time it was a rhythmic motion, pumping his heart with the heels of my hand.
He sucked in a gasping, heaving breath–
I held him close as he leant on his side and coughed. When he looked up at me, his words were almost unintelligible. ‘Kill me, Mira,’ he rasped. ‘You have to kill me.’
I stumbled back, but he was already rising to his feet, blocking my defensive movement towards his sword. The fury in his eyes was almost as terrifying as the realisation that they were entirely black.
I knew I was right then. Knew that this wasn’t him.
Relief and terror surged within me, because if he didn’t really want to hurt me . . .
‘You have to fight this,’ I begged him. ‘You’re being controlled–’
Aric’s only response was to reach for my throat. A whimper escaped my lips as his hand wrapped around my windpipe and squeezed.
I clawed at his hand, my teeth gritted with the effort of holding him off. My eyes darted past Aric – to the figure coming up behind him.
Aric didn’t notice. He was so full of rage that his entire attention was on me, with no hope of defending himself against Cassius’s blade.
My eyes locked with Cassius’s midnight-blue ones. I couldn’t talk, couldn’t say a word, but I begged him just the same.
Don’t kill him.
Please.
Cassius’s jaw clenched as he raised his sword, and I braced myself for it to slice through Aric’s neck.
At the last moment, Cassius shifted his grip on the sword – and hit Aric over the head with the diamond-studded pommel.
Aric collapsed face-first into the dirt.
I sucked in one painful breath. Then another. My knees buckled, and I would have joined Aric in the dirt if Cassius hadn’t taken hold of my shoulders. His eyes were murderous as they lingered on the bruises ringing my throat.
‘He was going to kill me,’ I whispered, staring down at the unconscious body of the young man who had been my best friend and my first love. ‘He was really going to kill me.’
Cassius could have driven the point home, but he didn’t. He merely held me close and let me break.