Page 445 of Eight of Swords, Part Two

Of course he can, but not well.

Shaking with effort, Riley rolls onto his side, organs twisting viciously in phantom pain because Vasily Sorrenko doesn’t seem to want him.

On all fours, he tries to breathe through it until Vasily makes an impatient sound.

‘Please let me help. They will see us.’

‘Fine.’

‘Yes?’

‘Yes.’

Vasily lifts Riley under his arms and helps him walk deeper into the woods, away from the fire, the Tower, away from danger, not that Riley would be any help to anyone, he’s useless.

‘Here, we stop a moment.’

Vasily carefully lowers Riley against a tree, into a hidden world beneath the canopy where roots stretch through rain-soft earth and wet leaves rot sweetly into new growth. Bark scores his back. Moss gives beneath his hands. He hears water travelling through wood, insects stirring under stones, small animals burrowing from the thunder of boots and gunfire. Every tree has its own unique creak, every leaf its own voice, all of it woven into treesong. Forest life crowds him from every direction. Sap, soil, fungus, fur, feathers. Threaded through it all, he smells smoke and scorched flesh, hot blood and burning home.

Vasily touches his forehead with the back of his hand.

‘You are fevered. They poison you?’

‘No.’

‘Riley. I…’

He reads grief in the rhythm of his heart. ‘I already know.’

Vasily’s voice doesn’t waver, but it gentles. ‘I am so sorry.’

‘Wh-what’s happening inside the… the Tower?’

‘Lachlan is rampaging. Fire is spreading. People are dead. I came to find you.’ Vasily’s dark eyes move between Riley’s own, reading him. ‘What is happening to you?’

There’s blood down the front of Vasily’s colourful clothes and more drying darkly over his hands, caught beneath his fingernails. The man he killed is back there somewhere with a neck broken, another body among hundreds, but Riley’s senses refuse to leave it behind.

He can smell the victory clinging to Vasily’s skin.

Riley’s knees part against the wet earth, his shoulders drop and his chin dips while his head turns, baring the vulnerable line of his throat in offering. In submission, he waits.

‘You are hurt here?’

Vasily’s fingertip brushes over the lowest part of Riley’s neck, where his throat meets his shoulder. His eyes flutter and a burst of sickly-sweet approval spills into his bloodstream.

He hears Vasily’s heart kick harder, hears blood rushing low in his body, smells the answering change in him, rich and immediate.

Human. Susceptible. Wanting.

But Vasily clears his throat and shifts backwards.

Riley must be doing something wrong. He bares more of himself, biting back a frustrated whine that he can’t even do this properly.

‘It is bruised, yes,’ Vasily says, voice hoarse and low. ‘But not so bad. They are searching for you. If I leave, they find you. Where are you hurt?’

‘In-inside.’

He can feel Vasily without seeing him.