The wild, out of control part that always emerged after a battle…or a fight.
The irrational, possessive part of me that still—after all this time and all his betrayals—wanted Ryland Storme without any shred of sense or pride. The part of me that slyly asked…why not? Why not take what you’ve secretly craved, what no other male has ever measured up to?
“Put me down,” I hissed, slamming my palms into his chest, hard enough to drive the air from his lungs. “Put me the fuck down before I carve off your balls and feed them to the crows.”
Ryland shuddered, as if realizing just how close we were, how heat shimmered between our bodies like banked fire.
He dropped me and I stumbled back a step, nothing but disgust in his flat eyes when he ordered, “Gather up your weapons while we get the packs. Be quick. We have two more miles to cover before dark, and the rest of the hounds will come once they smell blood.”
I stared at the stain spreading through the sand around the three bodies. At Ryland, storming away over the sands—no pun intended—at Varian, his dark eyes piercing through me, as if he saw something nobody else did.
One fucking day.
I’d been around them one fucking day and already, all my carefully drawn lines were blurring, my head—and my heart—fucking disastrous messes. For too long, I’d been living on scraps of memories, and having them both here, close enough to touch, had emotions carving through me like the knife I was still holding.
I was jealous they’d had each other and I’d been alone.
I was furious at losing my sister, furious at them for their broken promises.
But above my own tangled nest of feelings, one word loomed large, like a tavern sign I could not ignore.
Late.
Ryland and Varian might be back in my life, and I could be envious and pissed off and borderline obsessed with them both, but they weretoo late.
The Lyrae they’d known no longer existed.
The one who had fallen head over heels in love with them, her heart filled with hope for the future, making those big plans for the rest of their lives. The one who drew hearts on the walls of the safehouse and dreamed of flowers and babies, not swords and death.
That Lyrae was gone, buried beneath a thousand evil deeds and layers of scar tissue, and I couldn’t resurrect her, even if I wanted to.
This version of myself was too ruined, my hands too blood-soaked, my soul too stained. And while the phrasebetter late than neveralso came to mind, somehow, I wished I’d never seen them again, because now…
Now I ached for all those things I’d never have.
14
LYRAE
In the end, I did the one thing I’d sworn never to do again.
I obeyed Ryland Storme.
I plucked my knives out of the reeking Grimbeast carcasses and waited in uneasy silence while Varian flashed away to retrieve our things from the top of the hill. When he returned, he shouldered both his and my packs, then the three of us set off again, like nothing ever happened.
Except that one of us had a worse attitude than ever, and it wasn’t me.
Ryland set a brutal pace, even with his torn-up leg, while I spent most of the time smothering my impulse to make him stop to let Varian inspect the wound, which never stopped bleeding, leaving a distinct trail for the rest of the Grimbeasts to follow.
Not that Ryland would listen to me.
Or reason, apparently.
No, the stubborn bastard pushed through the soft, sandy terrain until my legs burned as badly as my lungs, until my blood-soaked clothing turned crunchy and stiff, my hair glued to my face in disgusting strands. I had sand absolutely everywhere, and places I didn’t usually think about were rubbed raw.
By the end of the fourth hour, darkness crept up the eastern horizon to our left, the sun sinking behind the mountains to our west. And still, fresh blood glistened on Ryland’s calf, soaking the top of his boot. Something funny twisted in my gut every time I glanced at that blood.
LikeIwas the one who was hurting.
