Chapter Thirty #2
Shit. I could insist Bren stays, get the spine out, hope I can survive the pain long enough and then get the water together.
Maybe Ezzy could take it out, but she's shaking more than him. Or I could let them go and I stay here, alone with Talen—and put my life in the hands of someone I barely understand. Barely trust. Yeah, he’s saved me.
More than once now. But it’s never been about me.
It’s about what he wants—and I still don’t know what that is, or what happens when he gets it.
Plus, if I send Bren, I’m choosing Talen in front of him, over him—and there’s no taking that back.
A small tingle in my knees, the poison spreading, higher now. There’s no time, I don’t want to choose him, but I have to.
“It’s okay,” I repeat to Bren, quieter now. “You can go. I’ll be fine.”
He doesn’t answer right away. Just stares, jaw locked. Then, finally, “I’ll be fast, twenty, thirty minutes tops.”
Bren and Ezzy disappear down the hill, boots kicking loose gravel as they vanish into smoke.
It’s just me and Talen now. His hand still wrapped around mine, warm and steady, like he’s waiting for permission to move. Then:
“You ready?” he asks. My stomach knots, nerves spiking hot under my skin, but his grip shifts, firmer, anchoring me in place. “I’ll be here with you the whole time. Okay?”
Okay. Okay, I can do this. I’m tough. I’ve survived worse. Haven’t I? One shaky inhale. “Fine,” I mutter, biting down hard, “just get this thing out.”
Talen settles my hand against his knee, and cold metal touches down a moment later. I don’t feel pain—the numbing still holds—but I feel the pressure, the slow drag of his blade tracing along my skin.
He’s slower than I expected, forearms flexing with each movement. Shit. This is going to take forever. And the longer it sits in me, the more that poison works its way through. My chest tightens, breath goes shallow and my hand twitches.
Without looking up, Talen brushes his thumb over my knuckles once—absently, then, calm as anything, he says, “What’s the scar from?”
“Sorry, what?”
“The scar on your other hand,” he repeats, still locked in focus.
I glance down, the burn mark. Yeah—no. I’m not going there, not now, not after today, and after the way he acted with Bren? Such a jerk, I’m not exactly in the mood for small talk. I don’t answer.
“This is going to take a few minutes, Bloom, and I need you to stay still. So we’re going to have to talk about something.”
My hand jumps again, damn it, I grit my teeth. He’s right. I hate it, but he is. If I keep twitching, he won’t get the spine out clean.
“Fine,” I mutter. “Was it you? I don't really remember, was it you who found me in the fire?”
The blade stills, just for a second, then, without looking up. “Yes”
“How’d you know where I was?”
“I bumped into Bren.”
My brows furrow. Ashvale’s small, but not that small. But before I can respond, a shiver slips through me. The breeze follows, cutting up from the wreckage below, cold and thick with ash.
“You’re cold.” He notes.
“I’m fine.”
Ignoring me, he turns, setting his blade down and shrugging off his jacket. Then he leans in and swings it around my shoulders before I can protest.
The fabric settles heavy, still warm from his body, smelling of smoke and leather and something distinctly him. It wraps around me, pulling tight in my stomach, a low, traitorous twist.
Then he leans back, his gaze lifts and catches mine. For a heartbeat, he goes still, so do I. My breath drags heavier, and his mouth tightens, jaw flexing, like he’s holding something back, but then his attention drops, hand finding the blade again, and keeps working.
We sit in silence for a moment longer, no twitching now, but it’s not calm either. Just frozen, wound tight. Like my body’s pulled to the edge and barely holding. Grief, yes. It’s painful, raw, sitting in the back of my throat like blood.
But there's something else underneath—his jacket heavy on my shoulders, the warmth of him seeping through, the slow drag of his touch anchoring me when nothing else will.
Something inside me buckles, a small, helpless give I can’t ignore.
I try to shove it down, it’s wrong, I know that, but I don’t have the strength to push it back anymore. What slips through instead is want—quiet, unwelcome, dangerous.
And once it’s there, I can’t shut it down.
“Okay, it’s nearly out,” he says. “If we’ve got it all, you should start feeling your legs again pretty soon. But once the poison clears, the numbing’s going to wear off too. That’s when the pain hits....” He looks up at me, something flickers low in my belly. “You ready?”
Shit. Bren’s still at least fifteen minutes out. Maybe more. But I can already feel the tingling in my hips—the poison spreading upwards, lungs can’t be far behind. No. It needs to come out now. I hold his gaze and nod.
One last flick of his blade, a small bit of pressure and the last piece of the urchin spine comes out.
It’s small. Stupidly small. How the hell can something that tiny do so much damage? Talen does one final check, then sets my hand down, gentle, before sliding his weapon away.
I lift it, looking at my finger. There's no blood, just a small cluster of pale, shallow lines—clean and exact, like he mapped every one before cutting. Beside me, he shifts and rises to his feet.
“You think you can stand?” he asks, holding out a hand as his dark eyes meet mine—the gold catching in the firelight below, burning too bright to ignore.
“Uh… I’ll try,” I mutter, reaching up to take his hand. The second I shift, my legs wobble. I catch his forearm, steadying myself as I haul upright. They still feel numb, distant, but they hold.
Talen lets go once I’m up, my back catching against the cold stone of the chapel behind me, I’d definitely hit the ground if it wasn’t there.
I let out a slow breath, then, subtle, but enough, I feel it.
A flicker, tingling in my feet, my Threads stirring again as the poison finally starts to fade.
It’s working. Oh, thank fuck. But just as the warmth creeps back, the throb in my finger flares—sharp, pulsing.
My lips pull tight. Jaw clenched. Shit, that hurts.
“Everything okay? How’s it feeling?” Talen asks.
“Yeah, it’s a bitch. Hurts like hell.” I hiss. “But... It’s, it’s bearable.”
Should’ve kept my mouth shut.
The second the words are out, it actually hits.
Fire lashes through my veins, tracing every inch the poison touched—bone, muscle, it’s everywhere. It’s too much.
My eyes squeeze tight, fingers twist into claws as I rake them across my own skin like maybe I can tear the feeling out, maybe if I rip deep enough, it’ll go quiet.
It doesn’t. Every heartbeat is a blade, and there are so many fucking heartbeats. This isn’t pain—it’s obliteration. The world narrows, breath shuddering thin, my whole body lit up like raw wire as every nerve screams like it’s being set alight from the inside.
Bren’s still ten minutes out, maybe more. I won’t survive ten seconds of this.
I can’t think. Air won’t come right. All I can do is scream.
Make it stop.
Make it stop!
God!—
My stomach heaves. I choke on the bile clawing its way up my throat. The floor tilts. Every pulse feels like it’s splitting my skull open from the inside.
I’m going to pass out, part of me wants to. Anything to get out of this.
“I can’t—I can’t—I can’t—” The words tumble out, breathless. Shaking.
Another scream rips loose, raw, animal, then something shifts in front of me. Heat clamps around my finger, pressure, a soft pull, and suddenly it stops.
Just—gone.
My body sinks, all at once, I fall back against the chapel wall, chest heaving. Not from pain, just the release. Still, I keep my eyes shut, afraid that if I open them it will come back.
But nothing comes. No fire. No razors under my skin anymore.
Instead, warmth floods my limbs, the contrast so sharp from the pain that it makes my whole body shudder. It feels so fucking good. Bliss isn’t even the right word for it. It’s too soft. This is more. Wilder. Like every nerve that was burning is alive now and wide open.
My head drops back against the stone, as I let out a sound, half laugh, half broken groan at the peace settling through my body. Then slowly I open my eyes.
Everything inside me seizes.
Talen. He’s right there in front of me, body flushed to mine, my right hand lifted to his face—my finger in his mouth.
Heat punches through me—molten, low, and unbearable—as the warm drag of his tongue moves over the tip of my sensitive skin, sparking every nerve I thought I’d burned out alight. A shiver follows, rolling through me in a full, helpless wave.
The pain’s gone, but the feeling that replaces it is something much heavier. Much more dangerous.
I bite my bottom lip, trying to keep it down—but it’s no use anymore.
I want that mouth on mine. Now.
Need coils tight in my gut, I have to stop looking. But when I drag my gaze up, his eyes are already there—dark and just as hungry. The stare hits harder than his mouth, searing straight through me.
God, he’s fucking devastating.
I should pull back, keep my distance, but my body’s already arching, leaning closer, chasing his solid heat.
Slowly, he draws my finger from his mouth, lips parting with the softest drag—like he wants me to feel every second of it, eyes never leaving mine.
“Thorn,” he murmurs, voice low, more a warning than a name, as he shifts in. “I’m not myself out here, beyond the Innerland Veils. I say things, do things, I don’t mean. Things I regret.”
His forehead drops against mine, solid, grounding, but his lips hover so close I can almost taste him. Everything in me tightens, breath catching as a low pulse flares to life, sharp between my thighs.
“Tell me to walk away.” The warm brush of his thumb over the back of my hand sends a jolt sparking up my arm, hot and needy. “Tell me you don’t want this. I need to hear you say it.”
A plea, low and desperate.
“Tell me not to kiss you.”