We made it fifteen feet past the clearing before she turned, grabbed the front of my shirt, and slammed me back against a pine trunk. The bark bit into my shoulders and Mira pressed the flat of the dagger beneath my chin, tilting my head up.
“Don’t make trouble,” she said. Her eyes were bright, furious, the one blue eye blazing behind its brown contact. “We are barely fixed. You are on the thinnest ice imaginable. And the next time a woman offers you a marriage alliance, you shut it down before I have to walk over and do it myself.”
“Yes.” The grin automatically spread across my face. She was magnificent when she was angry and she was always angry and I was always grinning and the cycle had no end in sight.
“Stop smiling.”
“No.”
“Lucian.”
“That was so fucking hot.” My hand found the back of her neck. “I’m allowed to smile.”
The dagger dropped a fraction, her breath caught.
And then my mouth was on hers.
It was a torrid kiss. Her back arched against me and my hand tightened on her nape, pulling her closer while her fingers released the dagger and twisted into my hair. My other hand slid beneath the hem of her shirt, palm flat against the warm skin of her waist, and her teeth caught my lower lip in a bite that sent a growl rumbling through my chest.
A squawk shattered the moment.Stupid bird.
We broke apart, breathing hard, and looked up.
The giant raven from this morning was circling above the canopy, its wingspan casting a shadow across the clearing. It completed one loop, banked hard, and disappeared westward.
Toward the mountains. Toward the portal.
My fingers were still tangled in her hair. Her hand was still fisted in my shirt. And the raven was already carrying whatever it had seen back to Veyndral.
Fourteen days.
The countdown had begun.
57
— • —
Mira
The compound looked different when you knew you were on a kill list.
Same corridors and fluorescent buzz overhead. With guards rotating at the same intervals. But the walls pressed closer now, and every hunter I passed became a question mark instead of background noise.
Fourteen days and forty soldiers. My name on a scroll sealed with lycan wax, classified under“threats to be neutralized.”
The council of Veyndral wanted me dead, and the organization my father built wanted me compliant, and I was walking between both of them with triplets in my belly and a flare plan in my head.
Mornings were the worst. Especially now that there’s distance between me and my three crazy mates.
The nausea had shifted from predictable to creative, finding new ways to ambush me between briefings and training rotations. Today it waited until I was halfway through the eastern corridor before my stomach rolled and I had to press my shoulder against the wall until the world stopped tilting.
A hand steadied my elbow. Elaine, appearing from the medical bay with her clipboard and her concern.
“You’re pale again.”
“Morning coffee didn’t agree with me.”
“You don’t drink coffee. I’ve watched you avoid it for weeks.” Her eyes moved to my face with the thoroughness of a woman who’d spent decades reading bodies. “I told you we need bloodwork.”
