“No.”
My eyes narrow on his. I prowl closer, feeling more graceful—more terrifying—now that I’m no longer dangling from the end of the king’s lure. I hold out my wrists, frayed rope wrapped so tightly around them that my skin is mottled red. Old silver scars have begun to pucker with pain. The sight of them reminds me what I have to lose. Fuckingnothing. “Cut me loose,” I repeat with a hiss, “and then I’ll tell you.”
His jaw clenches tighter. “I am not a fool—”
But he is. He really, really is.
I scoff, interrupting him with a cool shake of my head. “You saved me, didn’t you?”
At his withering stare, I change tack with the brutal speed of a riptide. Even sighing mournfully, batting my lashes, I blink up at him and raise my wrists. “I can’t very well lead you to mythical ruins beneath the ocean if I’m tied up like a lobster claw.”
He studies me, his gaze moving from my eyes to the rope to my neck, before searching behind us again. The breeze picks up, pushing so much hair in front of my eyes, I almost can’t see his apprehension through the pink. Warlock wings, I’d guess. The others must be on their way.
“If I free you,” Arion says in a low, terse voice, his control finally slipping, “we are flying straight to Abysses. I won’t hesitate to burn you if you so much as think about betraying me.”
“Me? Betray you?” I laugh as if it’s the stupidest idea I’ve ever heard. “The entire kingdom wants to scoop us up and lash usbothto a pyre. Untie me so we canleave.”
Still scowling, he seizes my wrists and tugs me forward, our bodies flush and his skin suddenly hot against mine. Too hot. Too strange. Too wrong. The touch steals my breath, and his hands practically sear straight through my dirtied tunic.Also strange. Also wrong.Trying not to recoil, I glare up at him. He’s massive—a mountain of man and muscle and power and strength—but there’s a sudden light in his gaze that feels… different from the rest of him. It feels unsure. Nervous.
By saving me, he’s just damned himself.
“I rescued you,” he repeats, his voice harder, firmer, now. “I am Warlock Arion Stone, and you will help me, or you will die.” He leans down to stare directly into my eyes, far too close for comfort. And though it turns my stomach, though I think about flicking him on the nose, I can’t help moving closer still. When I lick my lips, he tracks the movement, and his pupils dilate.He looks like he wants to devour me.The thought springs unbidden, and yet—he does. My stomach pitches at the realization. He looks as if he wants to swallow me whole and spit out my bones. His eyes flash again. “Do you understand, Zephyra of the Syl?”
And maybe it’s how he says it—almost a snarl—or maybe it’s that deadly gleam in his eyes, but my name on his tongue sends a shiver down my spine. I nod and hold my wrists higher, my elbows accidentally grazing his wings with the movement. He stiffens at that, as if I’ve shocked him, and growls. Conjuring a glass blade, he quickly cuts through my binds and shoves me backward.
Away from him.
Good.
An all-too-familiar pain in my wrists recedes as the ropes drop to the cobbled street. Sure enough, Arion’s gaze snags on brown wings in the near distance, and his own breeze grows more insistent.Stirring our hair and clothes and urging us to move. Because if the warlocks haven’t already spotted Arion’s wings or my hair, they will within seconds, and—
Their shouts rend the street. If possible, my stomach plunges further.They’ve found us.Already, they begin to cast arrows from the sky, but Arion’s breeze sweeps into a gale, throwing the missiles off course. They’re still advancing, however. They won’t stop coming until we’re filleted on their swords, and—and I have mere seconds.Secondsto get away. Fuck, fuck,fuck.
Arion tenses. “We need to fly—”
Before he can finish speaking, I bend over and grab a loose handful of dirt. When he glances back at me, I fling it into his eyes. He snarls at the impact, at the sudden deception, but I’m gone before he can retaliate.
As I said—men with wings are fucking stupid.
I race up the street, throwing myself forward on feeble legs, using any and all of my surroundings to propel myself faster—trash bins and fruit stands and people. Arion roars my name down the street.Faster.Who does he think he is anyway?Heknocked me out.Helocked me up. And now I’m supposed to, what—servehim? Just because he saved me from the nooseheforced around my neck? Yeah, right. I pump my legs faster, my arms too, dodging strewn bodies on the street, commoners soiled and fermenting with the stench of cheap liquor. He’s lucky I didn’t find a shard of glass and stab him in the throat. No, Arion Stone can’t have me. He’llneverhave me.
I already belong to someone else. Someone more magical, more powerful, than that winged beast could ever hope to be, and one master is more than enough. Even now, the thought ofhimlocks my knees, and I almost tumble to the cobblestones. Almost.
I escaped the sorcerer.
I can escape this warlock too.
And yet, I have nowhere else to turn. It’s either back to the sea, where the sorcerer will be waiting, or back to Arion, whose wing rips at my hair and clothes now, whose mind claws at my own, incandescent with rage. But I’ve had enough of deals and the menwho broker them. And contrary to the warlock’s beliefs, I’m not stupid. I know howthisdeal ends, even if I do manage to find his shitty ruins—with him wringing my neck as definitively as a noose.
My pulse roars in my ears.No.
I will not be owned again. Not for anyone. Not for anything.
I—I can escape into my homelands. The warlock’s wings won’t make it through the tumultuous current of the sea, and as long as I don’t use my powers, I won’t leave any imprint on the water. The sorcerer won’t be able to find me.Goddess, I hope he can’t find me.My resolve hardens with each footstep. I have no other choice; I need to swim to another human kingdom and hide better this time—no more stealing, no more friendships, no more stupid risks. I’ll hide for real. I’ll hideforever.
At least I’m good at escaping.
I hurtle toward the edge of the city, the shorewall, where docks with those Pegasi and ship captains wait. Men do not float on the sea anymore. Now they soar. Either way, the port is my salvation. My bare feet slide through a patch of sudden mud. My heart leaps into my throat. I glance down, behind me, and sure enough—the warlock flies after me, as do a half dozen others.
