“We could stay here,” she said between kisses, her voice breaking. “In the dream. Never wake up. Just this, forever.”
“We’d die.” I pulled back just enough to see her face, to watch how the light behind her eyes pulsed with each rapid breath.
“Maybe it would be worth it.” She traced the carved marks on my face with trembling fingers. “Better than waking up. Better than pretending. Better than watching you walk away from me again and again because we’retoo dangerous together.”
I pulled back farther, holding her face in my hands. Her skin was fever-hot beneath my palms, or maybe I was the one burning. “No. You’re meant for more than dying in a dream. You’re meant for—”
“What?” she demanded, and there was fury mixed with her want now. “What am I meant for, Kaelren? To survive? To become whatever the marks want me to become? To watch you destroy yourself while I can’t touch you, can’t help you, can’t—”
“Tolive,” I said, and the word came out like a wound. “To have more than this. More than me.”
“With you, though,” she said, and there was something broken in her voice that matched the broken thing in my chest. “I’d be dying with you. And maybe that’s enough. Maybe that’s everything.”
“Elle—”
The dream shattered like glass.
One moment I was holding her, the next I was slamming back into my body with enough force to make me gasp. My marks screamed with frustrated want, burning like brands across my skin. Across the fire, Elle jolted awake, her eyes snapping open with a sound that might have been a sob or a scream.
We stared at each other while the Star Veil danced overhead, both knowing exactly what had happened, both knowing we couldn’t acknowledge it. Her chest heaved with rapid breaths. Her marks glowed amber-bright, pulsing in the same rhythm as mine. I could still taste her on my lips, still feel the ghost of her body against mine.
“I should—” she started, her voice wrecked.
“Yes,” I agreed, not trusting myself to say more.
She stood on shaking legs and walked to the other side of the glade, as far from me as she could get while staying within the wards. She didn’t look back, but through the bond—the one we both pretended didn’t exist—I felt her want warring with her fear, felt her trying not to remember the way I’d kissed her like I was drowning and she was air.
I remained where I was, trying to forget the taste of her mouth, the feel of her body against mine, the way she’d said my name like a prayer and a cursecombined. Trying and failing. The memory was branded into me, deeper than any mark I’d ever carved into my own flesh.
The Star Veil began to fade with approaching dawn, silver threads dissolving into ordinary darkness. But the memory of that dream-kiss burned like corruption in my veins, like Bloom-marks spreading, like something that would consume me from the inside out if I let it.
We’d crossed a line we couldn’t uncross.
And we both knew it would destroy us.
The only question was whether we’d be able to stop ourselves from crossing it again.
15
Elle
Two days after the dream-kiss we didn’t talk about, we finally left the glade.
The Wild Hunt had withdrawn—not gone, but waiting at a distance like wolves who knew their prey would eventually leave the sheep pen. Nimor could move again, though he still flickered between solid and shadow, sometimes mid-sentence.
We traveled on foot through the Thornwood, keeping to hidden trails the Sage knew. The bees had scattered after the chase—Bryx said they’d find their own way home, that Kevin would track him down when things were safer. For now, we walked in tense silence, everyone hyper-aware of the Hunt’s horns echoing in the distance, never quite close enough to engage but never far enough to forget.
“There’s a settlement ahead,” the Sage finally said on the second evening. “Thornhaven Hollow. Neutral ground, markets, relative safety. A place to resupply and plan.”
What they didn’t mention was that Thornhaven had a tavern.
The Nectar Nook squatted between two massive trees like something that had grown there by accident—all curves and organic architecture, windows that glowed amber with promises of questionable decisions. The sign above the door featured a beetle in what could generously be called a corset, holding a tankard and winking.
“Oh no,” I said flatly. “Absolutely not.”
“Too late!” Bryx exclaimed, already through the door. “I need alcohol and poor choices!”
I followed reluctantly, Kaelren a silent presence at my back.
