A branch cracked.
A shadow burst from the undergrowth, snarling. Kairos shoved me back as he swung his blade at the blur. The creature twisted mid-leap, spitting. It landed in a crouch—massive, feline, but wrong. Black fur rippled over muscles too large for any normal cat, and ridges of exposed bone ran along its spine. Its yellow eyes tracked Kairos with an eerie intelligence.
The cat lunged. Kairos vaulted upward, but his ascent was too smooth. His silhouette looked impossible. Were those wings?
His boots hit earth with barely a whisper.
The cat’s head whipped toward him. Kairos was already moving, using a tree trunk to launch himself as claws raked where he’d been. The creature snarled, pursuing him up into the branches with terrifying agility.
The cat gave chase, gouging furrows in the bark that smoked. The acrid stench burned my nostrils. Branches snapped like bones, showering leaves and splinters as the canopy swayed under the violence of their pursuit.
Move.My legs refused to budge.
Kairos landed on a high limb.
The cat crouched, then vanished.
The air rippled. Then the trunk exploded in a shower ofwood as the creature reappeared mid-strike, shattering the branch under Kairos’s feet.
Kairos dropped in a controlled roll, his broadsword singing.
The cat’s hiss made my teeth ache, like grinding metal. It winked out again.
The hair on my neck prickled. The air charged?—
Yellow eyes flashed into existence, inches from my face. Hot breath reeking of rot. Teeth longer than my fingers. Its jaws opened?—
Something yanked it backward. Kairos had its tail, spinning the beast with its own momentum. Relief punched through me, and my knees gave out. The creature yowled, earsplitting, as his blade plunged into its flank.
The shriek that followed wasn’t from this world. The pitch went straight through me, rattling my skull. I clapped my ears, but the sound only burrowed deeper. The cat thrashed, flickering solid and transparent. Its claws raked between Kairos’s armor plates, spraying the ground with blood.
Kairos grunted and wrenched the blade. The cat shuddered once. Twice. Then it collapsed, the light in its eyes guttering out.
It’s over. We’re alive.
But my hands wouldn’t stop shaking, and the trees seemed to tilt. I’d almost been eaten by a beast that shouldn’t exist.
What kind of forest was this?
Kairos staggered back. He fell to a knee, pressing on the claw marks. Blood soaked through his fingers.
Run.
This was my chance—he was injured,distracted. I could disappear into the trees, and he’d never catch me, not with that wound.
His hand trembled. Crimson streaked down his leg, pooling in the grooves of his armor as he tried to stanch the bleeding.
Go. Before he recovers.
Rheya would’ve run. She’d have been halfway to the portal by now, smart enough to seize the opportunity. My mind screamed the same thing—move, you fool—but my legs locked.
I’d never been able to watch something suffer. Twenty-five years in Skalgard, and I’d never learned to walk away from pain.
Not even his.
Each ragged breath he took seemed to pull at some stupid part of me that couldn’t reconcile the monster who’d stolen my life with the fae bleeding out because he’d saved it.
My feet moved. Not toward the trees.
