“One step to the side, and that neck of yours will be soaked in blood. They’ll have the perfect view of me licking you clean.”
Desire flips through her and adds to my own. It’s fine, as long as it’s not love she wants. That I have to keep to myself.
She reaches behind her and takes me into a two-handed grip through my pants, teasing me. I pull the blade tighter. But I can’t deny she’s the one in control right now despite the steel at her throat.
Kaleida raises her brows at Never and fastens a hand to her hip. “Must you do that in front of us?”
“Eli can threaten to cut off Sypher’s tongue, but a little groping makes you uncomfortable?” Milo asks.
“How would you like it if I grabbed you in front of everyone?”
Milo grins at Kaleida. “Only if you insist. It’s all about what the woman wants.”
She groans but can’t hide her smile.
Never releases me and crosses her arms before continuing. “I was trying to say if we take down the border, Calderans can be a part of the magic cycle again and stop any further loss. Then we only need to make up for the lost magic to fix the imbalance. That will stop the disasters.”
She’s in too deep. The whole point of my existence was for me to be able to create new magic to make up for losses. And I can’t, and neither can anyone else, so we’re screwed. And no Vaile is going to believe the truth—that we used to give our gifts away to Hollows. It was the only way to prevent Vaile from going mad and dying from the aging magic inside them. It’s not meant to stay in one place. It needs to move. And like denying urges while linking unbalances magic to a lethal degree, holding it within does too. Which is why Vaile hardly live past forty-five now. If they don’t pass the magic on to Hollows, they die from the stagnation, killing the magic along with themselves.
They have no idea that’s why their life is cut short because the Centresses have been lying since the Separation. Never is right, though, pulling Hollows back into the cycle would stop the magic from dying. But the Vaile might kill every damn Hollow before they have a chance to experience nature’s intention—if the elixir doesn’t kill the Hollows first.
But I don’t care what they do or who dies, as long as Never gets what she wants… and fixes me. I want the voices out of my head. She’s the only one on my mind as I push against her back again.
She flips around. “Do you want to take this into the woods?” Her mouth struggles to stay serious.
But not mine. “Yes.”
She laughs, a genuine, uncontrolled laugh, then smacks her hand over her mouth like she always does. Which only makes me want to pry it away and slip my cock inside… show her how much I love it when she smiles. I’m not sure how long I can keep her at a distance, insisting this is nothing, before she gives up on me completely. I know it’s not fair. But I can’t walk away. I won’t let her go.
“They’re back,” the Hollow says, pointing at the ground and hopping back into Sypher as if corpses were rising from the burnt land.
“Oh shit,” Kaleida says, covering her nose and mouth with both hands and running in place.
I look down. Tiny green sprouts push through the blackened dirt, stretching taller right before our eyes.
“No,” Never whispers, and as her heart picks up again, from the light hammering of the start of arousal to the powerful thud of dread, the teva shoots up around us. It grows in spurts, matching the beat of our hearts. Taller and taller. Stronger and stronger. As far as I can see.
Never clings to me. I hold the small of her back, but the kid runs over and tries to squeeze between us.
“Watch the cock space,” I say. “Over here.” He shifts aside and pushes in next to us.
Kaleida screams and tries to stomp them flat. The mangled stems rise again and shoot upward. Milo smiles at the sight of rapidly growing teva, turning in a slow circle to fully experience it and already reaching for his fire stone. He jumps out of the way of a stalk spearing upward in rhythmic bursts.
“Dodge it now. Smoke it later,” I tell him. It grows past my knees, my waist, new sprigs appearing between the others.
And that’s when I see Never’s face, her indigo eyes vacant. She’s far away despite my arm around her. I don’t need to feel every emotion that bounds through her to know someone is dying in her head. Her visions are the hardest part of having a piece of her in me. My heart is ripped from my chest, trampled and bled dry. The loss she feels is lethal. I grab the side of her neck, my fingers curling into her hair, desperate for us to escape such pain. “Never!”
Life flickers back into her eyes. She blinks. Then takes in the climbing plants around us. A tear slips free, but she hardens her jaw and banishes every trace of emotion.
I wrap my arm tighter around her waist, still recovering from the way her devastation tore me open. “Who died?”
Her tough face falls apart in a messy crumple of features. She takes a deep breath and finds her strength again with a hard swallow and the rise of her chin, but she can’t stop shaking. “You.”
I feel the twist in Kelter’s heart, followed by my own. I’m frozen. In time. In space. In the panic knotting in my chest. How could she have felt that upset… over me?
Your denial is worse than hers,Kelter says.Get out of there.
“You have to calm down!” The kid grabs Never’s shirt into his fists, shaking her. “They won’t stop growing until you control yourself!”
