I would not shy away from what was between us, no matter how furious I felt.
That was her punishment.
Even if it felt just as much like mine.
“No.”
She had more words stacked up like weapons, but her voice cracked, and she hated it; she pressed her lips together and looked away from me at the water, despite the blinding reflections off the surface of the water.
The rabbit’s pulse was still wild in her throat, her breathing fluttering desperately. She could not guard herself as well as she could usually, despite the closing of her face.
She needed my arms around her to be a strategy, a trick.
I understood. I even, in some distant way, sympathized.
A new wave broke against the rocks below us, spraying cold across my hands, across her cheek. She didn’t flinch. Her gaze was still on mine, and she needed distance from me that I was not going to give her.
“Hold on,” I told her. My grip on her was gentle now.
She looked at me in misery but put her arms around my neck.
“Lightbringer only stopped because of you.” She blurted out the words as if she wanted to hold them back. “She said, ‘He comes to protect you.’”
I was suddenly too aware of her shoulder against my chest, of where my hand gripped her hip, of the press of her thighs against my forearm.
Watching her fall would have been the strategic response.
What use was she to me, without Lightbringer?
Why had I thrown myself to catch her without thinking?
“Speak to your mate,”Shadowbane told me impatiently.“You talk too much. Why can’t you speak now?”
We rose. The cliff path and the rocks dropped away. The sea shrank to a dark glitter far below. The wind was violent at this height, tearing at us both, and she pressed her face against my throat. My shoulders tensed, as if that rogue intimacy was something to brace myself against.
The overlook rose to meet us. I landed at the edge of it, folding my wings, and set her down on solid stone.
And for the first time in my life, I wasn’t quite sure what to do next.
Thirty-Two
Cara
Ipulled away from Fear as soon as I could. “Thank you.”
My legs felt unsteady underneath me—from the fall, from the terror, and perhaps from his proximity—as I walked toward the stairs. He went with me, and I gritted my teeth. I needed distance. I needed to escape him.
We walked through the empty barracks. The shadows did not move, but we knew they were full of Nightwalkers.
Back into Bismyth.
It smelled like breakfast, like fried apples and cinnamon, bacon, and fresh buttery biscuits, and the room was full of friends.
I needed to be alone, and the sight of all these people I’d come to love felt exhausting, like a gauntlet. Their greeting felt almost like a cheer rising.
Fear smiled as he came into the room beside me, his hand brushing over my lower back. I stiffened before I remembered to act. To be his wife.
Anayla’s gaze caught on the motion, then rose to my face. She might be glad to see us, too, but there was something careful underneath her smile.
