Completely. Utterly. Blank.
She crossed her arms, the picture of smug serenity. “Whatever is the matter?” she asked, tilting her head. “Too inexperienced to be specific?”
I blinked. “I’ll have you know that I’m very experienced.”
Her eyebrow arched. “And yet…none of them have stayed. Perhaps they were not good experiences.”
A scowl claimed my features. “I’m not taking criticism from someone who’s centuries out of practice.”
That landed. Her eyes narrowed. She stepped in close—closer than was fair—her breath brushing my collarbone as she leaned up, voice dropping to a whisper.
“I usually make up for the time I am asleep during my fortnight awake.” Her gaze dropped, slow and deliberate, sweeping me from head to toe. “Usually.”
My throat went dry.
I stared at her, uselessly, and managed: “What makes this time any different?”
She scoffed. “You are not my type.”
Liar.
The look in her eyes yesterday? That wasn’t indifference.
I caught her chin between my thumb and forefinger, guiding her to look at me. “I’ll be whatever type you want me to be.”
Heat and hunger flashed across the tether. I reveled in it.
For the smallest, fractured second, she wavered. Her lips parted. Her breath caught. And Saints—she looked at me, not like I was a mistake, but a decision she wanted to make at least twice.
She blinked hard, as though waking from a dream. The air between us fractured; she straightened, a single step carrying her out of reach.
“We have to get going,” she said.
Quinn mounted her horse with the grace of someone very much pretending her heartbeat wasn’t rattling her ribs. I watched her ride ahead, lips twitching, smirk threatening.
She didn’t want me?
Right.
And I was the Saint of celibacy.
The sun had begun its slow descent, bleeding fractured gold through the canopy. But in the Elderhollow, light didn’t behave—it hung in thin, brittle strands, afraid to touch the ground.
We’d been riding for hours, the hush between us settling heavier with each hoofbeat. The birds had stopped singing. Even the wind had gone still.
And that was when I heard it.
Snap.
One twig. Sharp. Deliberate.Wrong.
My reins tightened instinctively.
“Hold up,” I warned.
Too late.
The first arrow hissed past my cheek, close enough to shear a strand of hair. A second buried itself deep into the saddlebag behind me with a wet, uglythunk.
