“I’m good,” Rune said without looking up.
He didn’t stop, though. No. He scooted closer to her on the log. “It’s cold. It might help to?—”
“She said she’s good.” My voice was low and cold behind them.
Rune didn’t flinch, almost as if she expected me.
Hawk did flinch, though, and it made contentment swell through me.
“Dimitri,” Rune warned. “You didn’t have to wake up yet.”
“You’re endangering the ward,” I told Hawk, kicking his thigh once.
He moved away from her. “Ward? What do you mean?”
“You think you’re charming, but you’re leaning over an active perimeter and distracting a co-captain who’s doing what you clearly don’t know how to do.”
“I wasn’t?—”
“Youwere. And if this weren’t a simulation, you’d be the reason we die in our sleep.”
Rune stood, magic humming off her skin. “I can handle Hawk.”
“I know,” I said. My jaw hurt from clenching it. “But I’m not letting him handle you.”
Hawk frowned, pure idiotic confusion blooming over his expression. “So you get to talk to her and I don’t?”
“Yeah,” I answered as if he were stupid, which he was. “Because I respect her boundaries. That’s the difference.”
“I wasn’t overstepping her boundaries,” he protested.
“You were.” Rune’s eyes held mine; I didn’t look away. “Go rest, Hawk.”
Wind moved through the clearing, and the ward pulsed once.
“We’ve got an hour before your shift,” she told me, touching my arm softly. “Get some sleep.”
Her scent lingered as she pulled back.
“I can’t sleep. You rest,” I murmured.
“You heard the vampire.” Slater’s hand wrapped around her wrist before tugging her down and wrapping his arms around her. “Sleep.”
“Were you not just listening to Hawk hit on your girlfriend?” I hissed at him, irritation flooding me.
“Sort of.” He yawned, snuggling Rune as her eyes fluttered shut. “But Rune would kill him if he even tried to touch her.”
That was true.
Rune and Slater dozed off quickly, and the minutes ticked by.
The fire burned low, its glow shrinking to a pulse in the dark as I tossed another log in. It screamed out as the fire ate at it.The wards hummed faintly, but I knew it was only a fragile net against the mountain’s magic. Hunting had told us the terrain itself would attack, and that unnerved me.
I listened to the stillness, to the thin threads of breath from not only my squad but also the mountain. Even beneath my feet, a heart seemed to stall beneath us.
It had gone too quiet.
The thought had barely formed in my brain when the ground shuddered like a beast waking, and the mountain struck.
