Chapter 2
Alette
If I close my eyes, I see the wolves.
Not just the white one, but all of them, a roiling river of muscle and teeth, blotting out the hedges, trampling every memory under heavy paws full of claws.
I see them as they were, but also as something else…
as teeth with fur, eyes with no mercy, jaws big enough to crack bone like an egg.
They run in circles around my thoughts, ripping apart whatever comes close.
I keep my eyes open. I’m unable to escape the thought, what if they come back?
The fire has been steadily burning for hours. Maybe longer. The ground is hard and cold and crowded with roots, but I can’t stand the idea of rolling over. If I move, everyone will see.
Sylvian is two feet away, but he’s still far too close. His presence fills the clearing, like he’s still on top of me, pressing the air from my lungs. His breathing is uneven. He’s either dreaming of something interesting or he’s faking being asleep.
Oberon lies on the opposite side of the fire, hands folded over his stomach, face half-shadowed by his own arm. He wears his blanket only pulled halfway to his chest. Even in sleep his jaw is locked tight, the muscles twitching with the ghosts of unspoken threats.
Ashton is curled with one of his blankets under his head, using it as a pillow, and another hiding the bare lower half of his body while his clothes continue to dry near the fire.
His skin is golden and bare and utterly indifferent to the elements.
In the moonlight he looks like he’s already in a story someone will tell centuries from now.
When he laughs in his sleep, it’s not a real laugh, but the echo of one, as if he knows he should be laughing even when nothing’s funny.
Cassius is the only one I can’t fully see, as he’s leaned away from the fire, sitting in the shadows. He’s watching the labyrinth, keeping an eye on all of us until it’s someone else’s turn to keep watch.
I try to think about something else—about my mother, or the village, or what we’re supposed to do when the sun comes up—but every time I start to drift off, the memory of Sylvian’s mouth finds me, or the thundering of the wolves sounds in my ears.
It’s all tied together into a memory pumped with adrenaline and desire.
None of it is right. Not me kissing a fae. Not the pack of wolves overpowering the labyrinth.
A wolf howls in the distance, and I clench my hands so hard my bones ache. No one else stirs. No one else is afraid. Are they crazy for being so relaxed, or am I crazy for being so tense?
I try counting backward from a hundred, but I lose my place at ninety-four.
I think about how many hours it’s been since I slept last. I think about how many minutes it’s been since I went from someone with no knowledge of men to too much knowledge of men.
I think about how many seconds until I give up and just scream into the night.
At some point, I must have fallen asleep, because when I open my eyes, Sylvian is leaning over me, his face inches from mine.
“Gods,” I whisper, the panic shooting straight from my spine to my teeth. “What are you—?”
He smiles, and it’s the most honest smile I’ve ever seen on anyone. “You were making noises,” he says. “I thought you were dying.”
“I must have been dreaming,” I say, though I’m not entirely sure what I was doing. “I’m fine.”
He cocks his head. “You want to talk about it?”
“No.”
“Is it about your grandparents hurting you again?”
“No.” Even though I hate it when I dream about them.
He shrugs and lies down beside me, so close I feel the heat rolling off his skin. His blanket is low on his body, and the sight of his naked shoulder and chest is so distracting I have to look away. “Maybe it’s not safe to sleep alone,” he murmurs. “That’s why wolves have packs.”
I consider telling him to go away, that I don’t need him, but I don’t have the energy.
Instead, I stare at the black shape of the hedge and listen to the sound of his breathing.
For a while, it’s a competition of who can out-breathe the other, who can pretend the hardest that nothing happened.
We’re pretending we’re sleeping and not thinking about the other pressed against us naked.
Or at least that’s what I imagine we’re doing.
“You know,” he says, after a long time, “you could have said yes.”
My whole body goes rigid. “Said yes to what?”
He props his head up with one hand. “To me. To fucking. To anything you want.”
He says it so matter-of-factly that I almost laugh.
“That’s not how it works,” I say. “I barely know you.”
“I know you,” he says, with a conviction that terrifies me. “I knew you the second I saw you. You want me as bad as I want you.”
He’s right, and he knows it.
I pull the blanket tighter, wrapping it around my shoulders like armor. “You’re not thinking with your head.”
He laughs, but it’s not mean. “Maybe. But you’re not scared of me. Not really. And you don’t hate me. You feel connected to me the same way I feel connected to you.”
That’s not true, but I’m too tired to fight him.
“I’m scared of all of you,” I whisper. “You’re monsters.”
“We’re not monsters. We’ve just made some mistakes when it comes to humans.”
“‘Mistakes’ is a strange way of saying you were sacrificing women just to get your powers back.”
“It’s more than that,” he says, but he doesn’t elaborate.
“Not to me.”
He closes the last inch between us, and suddenly his lips are at my ear. “It’ll drive me mad, sleeping next to you and pretending I don’t want you.”
I almost shudder. “Then don’t sleep next to me.”
There’s a grin in his voice. “That would be cruel in another way.”
“Then, it seems smarter for you to sleep somewhere else.”
He sighs. “Fine. I’ll keep my hands to myself. Promise.”
As if his promise is enough.
He shifts, rolling his body even closer behind mine so that his chest presses into my back, his arms curling around me just under the blanket. He’s careful not to grope or grab, but the heat of him is overwhelming. It’s like being cradled by a furnace. Or a tree, alive and insistent.
I want to push him away, but I don’t. Not because I’m weak, but because I actually like his warmth. This weight.
“You smell good,” he murmurs into my hair. “Like rain and sweetness."
“That’s just sweat,” I say, but my voice is smaller than I mean it to be.
He laughs softly. “Sweat is honest. Most things in the fae world aren't.”
We lay like that, not talking, for a long time. I count my heartbeats until I lose track.
Eventually, his breathing slows, and I think he’s asleep. I relax, and the memory of earlier, of his hands, of the wolves, starts to soften at the edges of my thoughts. My eyes wander around the clearing as sleep tugs me closer.
Across the fire, Cassius leans forward, and suddenly, a pair of eyes glint, surprising me as I realize they’re focused on me. Cassius, not focused on the labyrinth, but watching us from the shadows. I realize he likely heard everything that just took place and saw everything that happened.
For a moment, I wonder what he sees. I suspect it though. I suspect he sees a girl making a terrible mistake. The very mistake she was warned not to make.