But Iwantto.
CHAPTER 16
MAUG
The tunnels welcome me like an old wound—dark, damp, unrelenting. I drag my body through the narrowing vein of stone, claws scraping against the volcanic grit, breath tearing raw from my throat. Each step echoes with the sting tail’s death. Its blood clings to my skin, tacky and sour, congealing in the bends of my elbows and the grooves of my palms.
But it’s not the sting tail I keep seeing. It’s her.
Her eyes.
Wide. Bright. Unafraid.
Shelookedat me.
Not like the others do. Not like prey does, or like those marines with their twitchy triggers and hate stitched into their uniforms. No—she looked at me like shesawme.
And I didn’t flinch. Icouldn’t.
I should’ve let her die. I know that. Would’ve been cleaner. Safer. Less complicated. But when I heard her scream—that jagged sound, half-caught in her throat—I moved before I could stop myself.
Now I sit in the belly of the world, shivering as the last heat of battle leaks out of my bones.
What the fuck did I do?
The wind shifts. Carries the scent of iron and ozone and… her. Still clinging to me. Under my nails. In the cracks of my knuckles. Her scent isn’t just in the air—it’sinme.
I slam my fist into the cave wall.
The rock cracks. Dust falls.
No good ever came from this.
No good ever came fromwanting.
My people have a word for it—jalshagar. It doesn’t translate cleanly. Not into human tongue. But it’s more than desire. More than bonding. It’s a tether. A curse. A promise that can’t be unspoken.
I remember the last time I felt it. I remember what it cost.
And I remember the silence that followed.
I won’t let that happen again.
I press deeper into the rock, away from the entrance, away from the sky. The thermal springs hiss as I pass, their breath thick and sulfurous. I dip my hands into one, scrubbing at the dried sting tail blood until my skin is raw. It doesn’t come off.
Nothing does.
I sit back against the wall and close my eyes, but sleep won’t come. Her voice plays over and over in my head.
“Wait.”
Just one word. One syllable.
But it wrapped around me like a rope.
And gods help me… I wanted to obey.
I never obey.
