Masked figures burst from the trees, mud-streaked with weapons aloft.
“Bandits!” I shouted.
Chaos erupted. Horses reared and screamed. Blades hissed free of scabbards. I dropped from the saddle without thinking, boots hitting the damp earth hard enough to jar my teeth. The world blurred into instinct and survival—shouts, the sharpclangof steel on steel, branches cracking, leaves scattering under frantic feet.
The smell of it hit next: sap and churned mud, iron and sweat, the raw, animal stink of fear carried on breath and blood. Shadows darted between trunks, blades flashing in quick, vicious arcs.
Thistle flung up a glowing hand. Vines ripped out of the ground like serpents striking, tangling ankles, jerking men off their feet. Her other palm slammed against a nearby tree. Roots surged forward, swallowing a sword mid-swing and snapping it in half. The buzz of magic mingled with the wet crunch of breaking bones. Branrir fought like a man possessed. He pivoted on a single foot, sword spinning, caving ribs with one strike and skewering another man through the throat with the next. He was terrifyingly good. Vesper launched from a low branch like a furry missile and landed square on a man’s face, claws raking deep. The scream that followed was as glorious as it was brief.
But none of that mattered.
Every sense I had was searching for her.
Quinn.
I caught a glimpse of her through the havoc. She fought to keep her horse under control. The tether between us wrenched so sharply it stole my breath.
Movement to her right. Too fast.
A bandit lunged from the undergrowth, yanking her from her saddle with brutal strength. The tearing of fabric split the air, followed by Quinn’s gasp of pain.
The world went red.
Sound dulled, fading to nothing but the pound of my own heartbeat. My body moved before thought could form, every old soldier's instinct rising clean and lethal.
I was no longer a man.
I was a weapon.
Two bandits blocked my path.
My sword cut the first down in a single, vicious stroke. I severed the other’s hamstring before he could raise his blade. Blood sprayed across my boots. I didn't care.
Nothing mattered excepther.
Quinn elbowed the man holding her, writhing, but he was stronger. His knife caught her cloak, jerking her backward, his grip brutal on her arm.
“DON’T. TOUCH. HER.” The snarl tore free of my throat as I closed the distance.
My blade sang once—then again. The man’s arms fell before he realized they were gone. His scream was short-lived. I drove my sword through his chest mid-fall, pinning him to the earth, his blood seeping into the moss. The forest fell silent again. I stood there, panting, sword slick in my hand. Quinn stumbled toward me, dirt streaking her cheek, splattered with the man’s blood. Her eyes were wide and wild, the fragile shell of control cracking.
Before I could think better of it, my hand was on her waist, pulling her in until I could feel the tremor running through herbones. She clung to me, burying her face against my shoulder. Her breath shuddered against my collar, quick and uneven, matching the thrum of my own.
“You’re safe now,” I rasped, though my voice broke on the words.
Her heartbeat pounded against mine, fierce and blessedly alive. She fit, as if my arms were always meant to hold her; now they would never feel right without her in them. I pressed my cheek to her temple and let myself breathe her in. Memorizing the weight of her. The warmth. The truth of her breathing. She pulled back, her lip trembling but no tears falling. That was somehow worse.
“Mav,” she whispered, my name itself a tether; the only thing keeping her from falling apart.
I had kept the vow I made at the truth loop:
Anyone who hurt her would be sent to the seven hells courtesy of my blade or bare hands.
And I would keep it again.
And again.
Thistle crashed through the undergrowth a moment later, hands still glowing with Hedge magic. Branrir stumbled in behind her, wiping his blade on a fallen man’s cloak and cleaning the lenses of his spectacles as if he hadn’t dismantled three opponents with terrifying precision. He didn’t even look winded.
