Her hand went for her dagger, too late. She hadn’t brought it. The weight that usually balanced her belt was gone. She cursed herself, stepping back, and her heart hammering.
When the first one grabbed her wrist, she twisted away. Thesecond caught her other arm. The third laughed and shoved her hard against the wall. Her shoulder slammed into the stone.
“Stop,” she hissed, summoning her will. She reached for the wind, the element that had once lifted her high, but nothing came. The air refused her. The magic was silent.
Panic lanced through her.Please!She tried again. Nothing.
“Come on now, little Stormcaller,” one mocked. “Where’s that power of yours?” He had her pinned where she couldn’t move. His hand raked between her thighs, and he began to pull up her nightdress. She screamed for help both out loud and in her mind. She knew what was about to happen, and she was powerless to stop it.
The mist shivered. Then froze. The air changed, sharp, metallic, cold enough to bite. Even the leaves held still. From the corner of her vision, the shadows began tomove.They coiled along the ground, spreading across the stones like spilled ink. From them, he emerged. Thorne.
His cloak swept behind him like trailing smoke. His expression was carved from ice, but his eyes burned, dark and shadow-lit, dangerous enough to still the air.
“You'd better run, because when I catch you, I am going to take my time killing you,” he said. His voice was low and final. A death sentence.
The cadets hesitated. “You think you can—” The first one lunged.
The shadows began to move and erupt. They didn’t stretch; they rose from between the stones, across the path, coiling with unnatural grace. They slithered along the ground like snakes made of silk and fury. From the heart of the fog, he stepped forward. Silent. His combat cloak unfurled behind him like smoke trailing from fire. His face was stone, carved from ice and shadow, but his eyes burned.
Thorne met him mid-stride. Thorne pivoted, caught the man’s wrist mid-strike, and twisted until bones snapped. The shadows swallowed his screams as he slammed against the stone wall behind him. The man hit the ground and didn’t rise.
The second cadet, bolder, meaner, drew a steel blade andswiped. Thorne caught the swing barehanded. The steel sliced across his palm, but he didn’t flinch. He stared at the blood for a heartbeat. Then smiled a wicked grin. The shadows exploded.
“You made a big miscalculation, you threatened what’s mine.”
The man screamed as darkness pinned him against the wall and strangled him until he gasped for his last breath. The third man tried to run. He made it three steps before Thorne’s shadow lashed out, wrapped around his ankle, and yanked him to the ground. Thorne followed, dragging him up by the collar and driving his fists into his ribs until the man crumpled.
The night fell silent but for the sound of Thorne’s ragged breath. The shadows curled around him still, living, and loyal. When they finally receded, the world seemed smaller for it.
Thaelyn pressed against the wall, shaking. The power that should have been hers pulsed faintly under her skin, answeringhiminstead. “Thank you. How did you know?”
“There’s nowhere you can go that I won’t feel you,” Thorne said quietly, his voice rough with fury and something else, something fragile. “I felt what was happening through the bond.”
She stared at him, chest heaving. “What was all of that? The shadows and all? Do you have shadow magic?”
His gaze met hers, fierce and unguarded. “No, it must have come through Vornokh. I’ve heard the tales of him casting shadows in battles, and I’ve seen them curling around him when he is angry, but I’ve never had them before. I felt your desperation and pain, and they just took over. I had to stop what was happening. I was in the war room with my uncle when I first felt it. I became feral, fear and rage took over. You weren’t supposed to matter this much.”
Something inside her broke open. She stared at him. His shirt was torn, blood dripping from his palm. His eyes weren’t just fire now, they were shadow and storm and something ancient. She walked toward him slowly. Blood still streaked his palm. His chest rose and fell with silent rage, his eyes scorched and shadow-rimmed, wild with something more profound than fury; it was need. She felt it. Gods, she felt it in her bones, too.
She moved toward him, trembling, not with fear, but withsomething hotter, deeper. She couldn’t stop herself. Her hand brushed his chest through his torn shirt, the heat of his skin beneath warmed hers. His strong masculine smell filled her head with desire.
“Thaelyn,” he warned, but his voice had gone soft.
“Don’t,” she whispered. “Not this time.”
She rose onto her toes. His hands found her hips, pulling her closer until their breaths mingled. The tension that had burned between them snapped into a single heartbeat. She moved her hips across his. He groaned.
She closed the space between them, slowly, as if pulled by something more ancient than choice. Her hands ran up and down his chest, fingers brushing the torn leather. The heat of his skin got hotter and continued bleeding through. He didn’t move. Didn’t breathe. As if any motion might shatter the fragile tether between them.
She rose onto her toes. His hands came up, hesitant at first, then anchored firmly on her hips, pulling her closer until there was no space left at all. His breath mingled with hers, warm and ragged. Her lips hovered a breath away from his. Then they collided.
The kiss was not careful. It was raw. Thorne claimed her mouth with a hunger that shook him to his core. His lips were firm, parted, searching. Thaelyn met him with equal fire, no hesitation, and no restraint. Her fingers threaded through his hair, fisting the strands as her mouth opened beneath his.
He tasted of heat and shadow, and the wild ache of restraint shattered. Their tongues met, hesitant at first, then urgent and hungry. He groaned low in his throat, one hand sliding from her hip to the curve of her back, splaying wide to press her against him as if he could fuse them through touch alone.
Thaelyn gasped into him when his teeth grazed her lower lip. He swallowed the sound like it was the only thing that could soothe the burn inside him. She tilted her head, deepening the kiss, pouring all her confusion, her longing, her months of denial into the way her mouth moved against his.
Thorne responded with a desperation she didn’t expect from someone so controlled. His hand slid up her back, cradlingthe base of her neck as his mouth explored hers with reverence and ruin. He kissed her like a man who had been starved of light and had just found his sun.
