Something he refused to become.
Chapter 32
Elora
Elora gave him ten minutes.
Ten minutes to vanish into the thick hush of the woods, to mask his scent behind sap and pine, to set his traps and double back and do whatever it was mercenaries did to stay alive when every creature was hunting them.
But even Rell, as skilled as he was, couldn’t completely disappear. Not from her—not like this.
When she finally moved, it was with purpose. Each step silent. His scent lingered faintly in the underbrush: pine, smoke, steel, and the sharp tang of that potion from the bath.
It led her to a tree where his coat hung, lazily draped over a low branch.
She stopped beneath it, letting herself look puzzled. Letting herselfactlike she’d lost him.
But she hadn’t.
She felt him before she saw him—above. The subtle disturbance in the canopy. The faintest creak of groaning bark. He was good. Damn good. If she hadn’t been so thoroughly shifted, tuned into the woods with every sharpened nerve, she might’ve missed him entirely.
She circled the coat, sniffing near it.
Then, with a quick pivot, she slipped out of sight, vanishing into the trees.
She climbed fast and quiet, her claws digging into the bark. She never climbed before but it came so naturally in this state. She spotted him soon after, perched across the canopy, crouched low, eyes scanning the forest floor where he thought she still was.
She moved like shadows, closing the distance with silent steps along the branches, the breeze covering the faint sounds of her approach. Her muscles coiled, ready.
At the last second, he froze.
She saw the realization dawn in his posture, the way his head turned slightly, the way his spine straightened.
Then he moved.
Rell leaped from the branch, dropping fast.
But Elora was faster.
She launched into the air, a blur of motion, body taut with the thrill of the chase.
Rell let out a grunt when they slammed into the ground with a muffled thud, a spray of leaves and forest debris exploding around them. He twisted, trying to roll away, but she was too quick, too relentless. She predicted every movement, countered every escape. She pinned him effortlessly. Her knees pressed against his sides, claws digging into the fabric at his shoulders, her hold firm but teasingly light.
Her fangs were bared, eyes gleaming. She had him.
“Got you.”
Rell blinked up at her, flat on his back with leaves in his hair and a look of stunned disbelief sharpening into reluctant admiration.
“Well, shit,” he muttered, exhaling a breathless laugh.
His hands rose, not in surrender, but to rest casually behind his head, as if he were perfectly comfortable being pinned by a clawed, fanged girl glowing with feral triumph.
He tilted his head slightly, eyes narrowing in a playful squint. “You look way too pleased with yourself, Sunshine. If I didn’t know better, I’d say you like having me under you.”
His voice was low and teasing, full of heat. He didn’t just tolerate her weight on him—he welcomed it. The dare in his eyes said he’d happily stay there all day if she let him.
The feel of his muscles beneath her, the steady thud of his heartbeat, the warmth of his skin where her claws had grazed it—too much, too close. The heat in her stomach coiled tighter, urging her to act on the pull she felt toward him. Not just instinct. Something deeper.
