Stepping back half a step, she tamped down the warmth his touch stirred.
“You risked both our lives on a random mystery rock?”
But…his trail hadn’t wandered. He’d known exactly where he was headed.
“I don’t buy it. You didn’t stumble across this place.”
His brow furrowed, and he cut her a glance from the corner of his eye. “You can’t feel it?”
She clamped her lips shut, the muscle in her cheek twitching.
“No awareness of the Source. No elemental tethers, either.” His teeth closed lightly around the inside of his lip, the motion small, absent. “Clothing that doesn’t match any region on the continent. And endurance that should require Source power, or at least elemental anchoring.”
He turned to face her fully. “And then there’s the very interesting way you reacted to my blood.”
Rynna froze as Kaelith’s hand lifted and pushed a loose strand of hair away from her face. The braid he’d tied three days ago was starting to unravel.
“Who are you, Rynna?” His fingers lingered along her cheek. “And why—despite every instinct I’ve honed to recognize and manage a threat—does the idea of hurting you, of leaving you, feel like it might break something I can’t afford to lose?”
Her pulse jumped loud in her ears. And her hand lifted, hesitating between batting his away and drawing it closer.
Then—crack.
A snap of wood sounded behind them.
“Who’s—” she started, barely catching sight of the bolt of darkness whistling overhead.
She ducked as it crashed into the rock face above the cave, but the ledge was already collapsing.
Kaelith slammed into her. Her feet left the ground, spine jarring as she hit a nearby patch of gravel. His weight followed, crushing the air from her lungs, shielding her.
Stone thundered around them. Dust rose. Rynna blinked against it, vision blurring just as a rock, the size of her head, tumbled through the air straight for them.
“Kae—!”
He twisted, eyes flashing over his shoulder, but there was no time for them both to dodge. His body coiled over hers, braced. And the impact landed with athud, driving a grunt from deep within him. Then his arms collapsed around her as he dropped fully.
“Kaelith!” she gasped, hands scrambling under his arms, lugging them both through the grit. He didn’t respond, head slumping onto her shoulder as she dragged them back inch by inch, scooting on her butt across the uneven ground.
“Don’t you dare fucking die on me!”
Dust hung thick in the air, refusing to settle as stones clattered down the slope.
“Don’t be dead.” She adjusted Kaelith’s body, winding her arms under his shoulders as the words tumbled out over and over. “Don’t be dead.”
Then she hauled his limp form behind a jagged boulder just wide enough to shield them from the direction the strike had come from. Pressing trembling fingers to his throat, the sound of falling stone still crashed down around them.
There. A faint beat beneath the pale skin.
“Thank the stars.”
Relief surged as her palms moved over him, checking his ribs, his head.
He could have died.The thought nearly blinded her, curling her hands into fists before she forced the rising angerdown.
Focus.
She hesitated at his neck, fingertips sifting through his hair, sliding gently beneath the base of his skull to check the alignment. Too much pressure and she could do damage. Not enough, and she’d miss something critical.
