I fear it.
Because something in me responds to her strength. To her fire.
Toher.
A shadow shifts near the edge of the ledge, and my head snaps up before I can stop it. For half a heartbeat, I swear?—
But no. It’s only a trick of the light. A flurry of dust on the wind.
I exhale, low and bitter.
Hope is a knife with a dull edge. It doesn’t kill fast. It cuts slow.
And I’m bleeding.
CHAPTER 17
JILLIAN
Ican’t stop thinking about him.
My data sheets are a disaster—half-finished notes, charts left unlogged, sample vials stacked in mismatched trays like some amateur’s workstation. I’ve never been this disorganized in my life, but no matter how many times I sit down and try to focus, my pen stills. My gaze drifts. My mind wanders.
Back to him.
The one who isn’t supposed to exist.
The one who saved me.
The one with eyes like twin suns burning through every lie I’ve ever told myself.
I keep telling myself it’s shock. Adrenaline. Trauma, maybe. He killed a sting tail in front of me—ripped it apart like it was nothing, stood over its twitching body while the blood soaked into the dirt. That kind of thing sticks in a person’s brain.
But that’s not what I remember most.
It’s the way he looked at me. Like I wasn’t just another human in his territory. Like I mattered. Like he recognized something in me I didn’t even know was there.
He was huge. Terrifying. All muscle and dark fur and ancient scars carved into skin I don’t have the language to describe. Buthis eyes… they weren’t monstrous. They wereaware.Curious. Alive in a way that made the rest of the world feel dim by comparison.
I see them when I sleep.
And I dream of nothing else.
“Jill?You coming to the lab meeting?”
Darwin’s voice is muffled through the tent flap. I jolt like I’ve been caught doing something I shouldn’t. Again.
“Yeah,” I call back, faking a yawn. “Just—give me a sec.”
He hesitates. I hear it in the pause before his footsteps recede. I don’t blame him for not pushing. I haven’t exactly been subtle lately. I’ve beenoff, and everyone knows it.
Still, no one asks. Not really.
Not after Carson.
They think I’m grieving. And I am. Just not the way they think.
I leavecamp before first light.
