Page 50 of Betrothed

“I will do this so often you will lose count,” Zax murmured into her skin. “Soon we will know each other with our eyes closed. I will be able to trace you from memory.”

Fawn let out another soft whimper. This one broke at the edges.

Zax looked up, alarmed. Fawn was crying again. Not the shocked ecstasy from the ritual, but hitching, shaking tears that she tried to smother by covering her mouth with her hands.

“My love?” Zax leaned over her, nuzzling her cheek. “What is wrong?”

Fawn shook her head. When she was able to speak, she said, “I never knew being a wife could feel like this.”

“Like what?”

“Being…” Fawn laughed wetly. “I don’t know. Cherished.”

Zax relaxed, wrapping her in his arms and holding her close. “Mortals are strange. What else would a wife be?”

Fawn laughed again. It was full of relief and, if he was not mistaken, grief. She twisted in his grip, hugging him back fiercely.

“I wish you had eaten him sooner,” she mumbled. “You should have carried me off and kissed me right there in the forest, covered in his blood.”

“You would have tried to stab me again.”

“I would have.” Fawn grinned, and not for the first time, Zax imagined her with fangs.

He kissed her again. Then a faint noise made itself known, and he froze.

Fawn pulled back. “What?”

Zax shushed her and pulled her deeper into the cave. He took the blanket too, and the pack, and soon they were wedged up against the end of the cave with not even a shaft of light touching them from the mountain path.

At first, it was only wheezing and tired footsteps. Then there was a voice, and Fawn stiffened against him. Staring at the mouth of the cave, hoping that it was small and hidden enough that they would not be noticed.

“I did hear something,” snapped Errol, so breathless the words were almost inaudible. “A… a roar! A Skullstalker roar! You really didn’t hear anything?”

More panting. One of the hunters managed, “Dragged us all up here for nothing.”

“Dragged us in circles,” the other hunter added. “Those footsteps follow each other around, they do! I bet the Skullstalker’s in some void right now, slipped through a part of the veil right here on this mountain. You know the veil’s thin here, eh? We could all stumble through it any second!”

“We won’t accidentally step into a void,” Errol insisted. “Come now. You cannot give up the hunt just because of a few bad days! We will find the bastard. We will get my fiancé back. And we will show her the errors of her sinful ways, and she will see the light⁠—”

“Yes, yes, enough,” the first hunter said, cutting him off.

“Light, and so forth,” the second hunter muttered over him.

There was another shout from the distance. It sounded like Chastity, panting and annoyed from further down the path.

“Don’t be bothersome, Mother,” Errol yelled back. “We are coming. Stay there.”

With that, the mortals left. Still grumbling, still panting, so sweaty that Zax could smell them from the depths of the cave.

A long minute passed before Fawn relaxed in his arms, her breath leaving her in a long gust.

“We could escape,” Zax whispered. “We have the spells we came here for. My brother will not help us fight. We could flee.”

Fawn pulled her dress over her sweaty body and stared at the mouth of the cave. “Do you want to flee?”

Zax paused. “I want you to be safe.”

“But you also want to rip them apart.”