She breathed a curse. “This dream was different from the others. I can’t believe I forgot that.”
“How?”
“The tree caught fire.”
Alar frowned. “The prophecy isn’t the same then.”
“It isn’t?”
He shook his head. “I suggest you have a word with Ruari tomorrow. Fire cleanses and transforms … but it also destroys. This time, your dream is sending you adifferentwarning.”
17: A BREAK IN HOSTILITIES
LARA EYED THE man who stood before her.
That had been quite a story earlier. There had been moments throughout when she’d doubted him. But then his words at the end had moved her.
I betrayed the person I loved most. And nothing has ever mattered so much since.
His single-minded hunger for justice. His blinkered loyalty to the wulvers. The layers of secrecy that surrounded him. His walled-off heart. Suddenly, all the missing pieces clicked together.
Aye, she was a soft-hearted fool, yet she believed him.
And now they stood awkwardly together, neither knowing what to say. In the flickering torchlight, Alar was paler than usual, his twin scars starkly silver against his skin.
“I will speak to Ruari,” she assured him, stepping back then.
She felt oddly deflated. When she’d awoken, heart pounding, all she’d been able to think about was the seven crows sitting in the yew tree. The fact that it had started smoking before catching fire had gone straight over her head. Alar was right. This change might mean something significant.
“We must work together over the coming days, Lara,” Alar said then, his voice husky. “And it’ll be easier for us both if you put your knives away.”
She harrumphed.
“Can we be allies again?”
Her pulse accelerated. She wasn’t sure about this.
His lips quirked. “Or at least until our task is done.”
“Maybe,” she said, eyeing him.
“I’ll take that.” To her consternation, he moved forward and held out his hand. “Let us shake on it.”
Lara’s pulse fluttered. She didn’t want to touch him.
She considered shaking her head and taking another step back, but something about his expression stopped her.
There was no guile in his eyes.
Steeling herself, she reached out and clasped his hand.
The shock of their skin meeting dragged her right back to the past. The familiar strength and warmth of his grip. His scent enveloped her then: leather, oak, with a faint note of mint. She resisted dragging it into her lungs.
For an instant, their gazes met and held. Alar then gave her hand a gentle squeeze. “Allies,” he whispered.
Lara swallowed hard before she gave a jerky nod, ripped her hand from his, and turned on her heel. Face flaming, she strode away.
The Reaper strike her down, she was an idiot for approaching him. Alar had disarmed her with his sincerity and vulnerability, yet she couldn’t help but feel manipulated. Ducking around where Bracken dozed, head hung low, weight resting on one hind leg, she headed back toward the fire.
