As soon as I step out of the dining cave, Wade is there. He’s so handsome it takes my breath away. The hard planes of his chest and back are accentuated by his tight-fitting cotton shirt. The edges of his hair just brush the sharp angles of his jaw.
My cheeks flush as I see his eyes roaming over me in the same way.
“Hemera.” My name rumbles from deep in his throat. He takes a step toward me, and my heart leaps.
Before he can get any closer, there is the sound of boots tramping down the tunnel. Wade takes my hand, and before I can protest, he’s tugging me down the tunnel away from the sound of voices.
I’ve never been to Wade’s sleeping chamber before, but I know that’s where he’s taking me. There are no laws here about separate caves for men and women as there had been in the Subterrane…but it doesn’t stop me from feeling like I’m doing something I shouldn’t. Still, the feeling isn’t enough for me to pull away. Wade’s hand wrapped around mine feels so good.
The blue flowers growing in tangled cords along the walls give off a heady perfume. The scent, or maybe it’s the wine I drank earlier, makes my head spin. Even the waterfall mist falling across on my face is like tiny pinpricks on my hot cheeks.
When we reach the threshold of Wade’s chambers, I begin to panic.
Why did I come? What do I expect from Wade? What does he expect from me?
I swallow as Wade turns to face me.
The intensity of his gaze only makes me more nervous. It’s just Wade, I try to tell myself, but it’s no use. My heart continues its increasing efforts to pound straight out of my chest.
Wade takes another step toward me. Almost of their own accord, my feet match his, step for step, until we’re close enough to touch. Wade closes the remaining distance between us with the fluid motion that is so familiar to me from our time training together.
We’re still standing in the tunnel outside his chamber, but as Wade’s arms wrap around me and pull me close, I stop caring whether someone will walk by and see us. My face is pressed to the hollow between his neck and collarbone, and I breathe in the salt and heat of his skin. I wrap my arms around his waist, as much to steady myself as to return his embrace.
Wade’s hands move to both sides of my face. His calloused fingertips brush lightly against my cheeks. He steps back just enough to look directly into my eyes. I think he’s going to say something, but instead he leans down and presses his mouth to mine.
The last time we kissed it was gentle, sad…a goodbye. But this—this kiss is a fire in my chest.
He fumbles at the door handle behind him and pushes it open without moving his mouth from mine.
We stare at each other for a moment, dazed, before Wade breaks our embrace to step into the room.
My gaze flicks to the unmade bed wedged in the corner of the room. My heart thuds in my chest. The only sound is our ragged breathing as Wade steps back to reclaim my hands.
“What’s all that?” I nod to the rolls of script tree bark, trying to pretend I’m not standing inside Wade’s bedroom, with my every nerve on fire.
Wade looks confused for a moment, and then, taking a breath, follows my gaze.
“Oh, you know. Just maps of Dusker troops, reports on raids in the Banished Lands, stuff to keep me busy while you all are at Malarusk.” His face darkens.
“Wade….”
“I don’t know how Jadem can expect me to stay behind while the people I love are going to the most dangerous place imaginable.”
Love. He looks away from me when he says the word. When his gaze returns to me, it comes to rest on the Solguard pendant hanging around my neck.
“You’re still wearing it.” There’s something like awe in his voice.
“I never took it off,” I breathe as Wade’s fingers trace along the intricately curving lines.
A shiver of pleasure goes through me as he traces the spirals, following them out to the skin of my chest.
“You should have it back now,” I say, a little breathless, as I reach up to untie the cord.
Wade shakes his head. “I wanted you to have it.” He gazes at the pendant with a faraway look, and I know he’s thinking of Sal, its original owner.
I reach up to touch the pendant, but instead, my fingers find my mother’s silver key.
“I wish he were here,” Wade says. “He would have known how to protect this fortress. He wouldn’t be stumbling around like a blind man like I am.”
“I know the feeling.” I look down, unable to meet his gaze. “But you’ve kept them alive. You haven’t failed.” Like me, I want to add.
Wade reaches up with both hands, holding my face between them. “Hemera,” he murmurs. With that one word, I can hear a thousand more words he doesn’t say.
He looks into my eyes, unflinching, before our mouths find each other. An intense heat flows from his lips to mine, from every place his hands touch my skin.
All of my longing for him, a longing I didn’t even know I had, makes me cling to him.
I’m drowning in Wade, in the smell of waterfall mist and the heat of the sun and the taste of his lips. All that keeps me upright is the solid wall at my back and Wade’s body pressed against mine.
His lips move to my neck, tracing a line across the place where the silk collar of my dress meets my bare skin. He pins my arms against the wall above my head with one of his. Even though I could break free from his grasp with barely a thought, I don’t resist. My lips are just as eager, just as desperate, for his.
I’m dizzy from the pounding of his heart against mine, my own breathlessness. When he releases my arms to slide his hands over my hips and up my back, I reach beneath his shirt to feel his bare skin. My fingers trace over the scars across his ribs and backbone, feeling the heat of his skin against my hand. I barely know what I’m doing as I pull the fabric of his shirt over his head. In response, Wade makes a sound deep in his throat.
He lifts me off the ground and wraps my legs around him. I feel his hand on my bare thigh. I gasp.
There is such a certainty to his movements, a confidence to his touch. In spite of my desire, my need for him, I can’t help but wonder how many times he has done…this.
It’s been more than a year since Wade told me he loved me. How many women has he been with since?
Still, it’s not like I’ve never kissed another man, never been with someone else.
Brice.
Like a punch to the gut, memories of Brice take hold of me even as Wade holds me in his arms. Images of our secret cave behind the waterfall come unbidden into my mind. The promises we made to each other. Brice’s betrayal. His choice to die so I could live.
“What’s wrong?”
Wade is still holding me, but he’s pulled back. His eyes search my face. “Did I do something—?”
“No,” I shake my head. We’re both breathing hard as I struggle to clear my mind enough to make sense of my jumbled thoughts.
“It’s just,” I swallow, trying to find the right words for feelings I’m not sure I understand myself. “I thought I could forget…that I had moved on since…everything.”
Wade steps back so quickly I almost fall over without the weight of his body pressed against me.
“You’re still in love with him.” The look on his face tears at my insides.
“No.” I shake my head. “I mean, I don’t know.”
Even though Wade is mere inches from me, it feels like a vast chasm has opened between us. I want to pull him back to me. But I stay rooted to the spot, hating myself for being the cause of his pain.
Wade turns his head away from me for a long moment. When he looks back at me, his face is a mask. His eyes, so unguarded and like liquid fire only moments ago, are expressionless. Say something, I beg with my eyes. Yell, storm out, do something. Anything would be better than this…nothingness.
“Wade,” I say. “I just need some time…just to figure everything out.”
His face doesn’t betray any emotion. He looks not so m
uch at me but through me when he says, “Take as much time as you need.” He’s far away, even though I can still feel the warmth radiating from his body.
“Oops. I guess we’ll just come back later.”
I let out a strangled scream as a voice—not Wade’s—comes from the doorway.
Wade stumbles back from where our bodies are still almost—but not quite—touching, revealing Ry and Dellin standing just inside the room. Ry’s unfocused gaze moves from Wade’s bare chest to me as I hurry to pull my twisted dress back into place.
“I’m sorry.” Ry takes a step forward and then trips over the hem of Dellin’s cloak. Dellin reaches out a hand to steady her.
“What are you doing here?” I’m too surprised to feel embarrassed.
When Ry’s gaze shifts to me, it’s the saddest look I’ve ever seen.
A few moments ago, I hadn’t thought my heart could sink any lower. But seeing the look in her eyes….
Ry is in love with Wade.
It strikes me like a blow to the chest. Wade and Ry have been friends for longer than I have known either of them, but they always seemed more like a brother and sister, like Dayne and me. I never thought, never once suspected, that Ry felt something more.
“I just wanted to say….” Ry gives a short, forced laugh. “You know, since there’s a good chance we’ll all be dead by next high day….” She laughs again, which turns into a hiccup.
“You’re drunk.” Wade turns away from us both, grabbing his shirt off the floor and pulling it over his head so violently the material tears.
Ry turns her face into Dellin’s chest. The muffled sob is unmistakable.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—” Wade reaches out a hesitant hand in Ry’s direction.
At the same time, I start toward her, but Dellin moves to shield Ry with her body, keeping one arm wrapped protectively around the other girl.
“Don’t you think you’ve hurt her enough?” Dellin glares at me, her gray eyes sharp and accusing.
“I’m sorry,” I say, echoing Wade.
Dellin keeps her body angled between me and Ry, like I’m some kind of threat she needs protection against. “Come on Ry,” she says with a gentleness I wouldn’t have thought possible from someone with such a murderous glare. “Let’s get you out of here.”
“Glad to know you’re already such an expert on what she needs,” I snap, “since you’ve known her for all of about two seconds.”
Ry looks up at me with her tearstained face.
“Ry—” Wade murmurs, but she just shakes her head and gives him a little smile.
“You’re right.” She hiccups. “I just need to sleep it off.”
“I’ll take you.” I go to her, silently daring Dellin with my black eyes to try to stop me. I take Ry’s other arm and lead her from Wade’s chambers. I know Wade is still standing there, watching us, but I don’t look back.
A part of me is relieved as soon as we’re down the tunnel. I can breathe now without the heat of Wade’s eyes, the press of his body against mine. The other part of me aches to run back, to take back everything I just said, to say those three little words I know he wants to hear.
But it’s too late.
“Can you forgive me?” Ry asks as I help her into bed.
“I’m the one who should be sorry. I didn’t know you felt that way about him.”
Unbidden, an image of Ry locked in Wade’s arms, the way I had been only a little while ago, flashes across my mind. My heart gives a small, painful jolt.
Dellin scoffs. “You really are as dumb as you look, aren’t you?”
“What?”
“Dell,” Ry gives her a warning look.
Dellin throws up her hands and stomps out of the chamber.
“What’s her problem?” I demand, not even bothering to keep my voice down.
Ry doesn’t respond. She’s already asleep.
CHAPTER 16
Vlaz, who is standing beside Wokee, bounds over to me when I emerge from the fortress. He gives me a lick that has enough force behind it to send me sprawling. As soon as I’m on my feet, he lowers his head so I can scratch his flopped ear.
Aunt Jadem is tying the last of our supplies around the hyenair’s neck while Wokee is talking, to no one in particular, about all of the commands he’s taught Vlaz.
“Stop worrying,” Ry is saying to Jadem. “We know the plan.”
Ry gives me a distracted smile as she inspects the arrows being packed into her and Dellin’s quivers. There doesn’t seem to be any evidence of her breakdown during the high day, or any resentment she might be feeling for what she saw in Wade’s chamber.
“Tell me again.” Aunt Jadem puts her hands on her hips, the strain evident in her too-stiff posture.
Ry rolls her eyes. “In two low days, Vlaz will come back here for me and Dellin. We’ll meet up with the Halves in the clearing beyond the citadel and wait for your signal. When it’s time, we’ll use Vlaz to give you cover from the air. Once Crowe’s lover is past the iron gate, the Halves will snatch him and we’ll get Dayne and Hemera. We’ll all rendezvous back in the clearing.”
“Wait,” Dellin holds up a slender hand. “You said we would be staying in the woods. You promised we wouldn’t enter the Dusker territory—you said—” Dellin’s eyes are wide. She yanks at her hair and clenches her fists.
“We’ll be on Vlaz,” Ry says. “You won’t be in any danger.”
“You don’t understand.” Dellin rubs her hands up and down her arms as if she’s trying to get warm, even though it’s as stifling as ever out here. “I just can’t…go there…ever.” She’s breathing too fast. Even from where I’m standing, I can see her too-quick pulse fluttering at the base of her throat.
“Shh,” Ry gently pries Dellin’s hands from her arms. “You’re going to rub yourself raw. Or pass out.” She says something else to Dellin, but it’s too quiet for me to hear.
Dellin’s dirt-streaked face is still contorted in worry, but by the time Ry has finished speaking, she seems to have regained her composure.
I feel a moment of sympathy for Dellin, imagining what it must be like to be dragged almost all the way to Malarusk before escaping, and then to be asked to go there with people she’s only just met.
“What about you?” I ask Aunt Jadem. “Where will you be?”
“With you and Dayne, of course.” She turns to fiddle with a supply pack tied around Vlaz. It seems like she’s trying not to look at me.
“How do you know you’ll recognize Hendrix after all this time?” Ry asks.
“Because of his eyes.” Valior, who has limped up to our group, has his flask in one hand and a cane in the other. “Hendrix is the only pure-blooded Dusker with green eyes.”
“And,” Aunt Jadem says, “because I worked by his side for eight years.”
“Like emeralds,” Valior says as if my aunt hadn’t spoken. “Can’t miss ’em.”
I try to look busy, even as I scan the tree line, hoping and fearing Wade will step into the clearing. He doesn’t.
When Dayne comes out of the fortress, Aunt Jadem looks up from where she’s stuffing supplies into a pack. “Do you have it?” she asks.
Her shoulders sag with relief when my brother holds up a pile of gray fabric.
Dayne’s face has taken on a greenish hue, and he looks like he’s going to be sick. His anger from the council meeting seems to have been replaced by a resigned silence.
Liglette and Tut emerge into the sunlight, their cloaks pulled tight around them. Liglette wears a smile on her face; Tut looks like he regrets the wine he drank at the feast.
“I hope, for your sake,” Tut belches, “you’re as strong as you think you are.”
“I am,” I assure him. I have to be.
“You’ll be back soon, right? Wokee pulls on the sleeve of my cloak to get my attention.
“As soon as we can,” I promise. I pull him against me, as much to comfort myself as him.
Valior moves his cane to t
he hand holding his flask and extends his free hand to me. His grip is stronger than I would have guessed. “Succeed, and the Banished will fight alongside you. Fail, and you’re on your own.”
Tut and Liglette nod.
“We’ll do our best,” Dayne says acidly.
Wokee holds a rope attached to Vlaz’s neck to keep him still while Aunt Jadem climbs on his back.
Ry doesn’t look at me as she arranges the arrows in her quiver for about the hundredth time. I should say something to her, but I have no idea what. At the same moment, Dellin catches my eye. A scowl twists her face.
“We’ll see you in the clearing,” I say to Ry, mostly for an excuse to look away from Dellin.
“Take care of them,” I tell Ekil and Brogut. They alone seem completely at ease.
We all watch as the two Halves head off into the trees. Brogut stomps through the underbrush, heedless of the noise he’s making, and can still be heard long after he’s disappeared from view. I bite my lip as I listen to his punishing footsteps, wondering if it was a mistake to rest so much of our plan on the Halves. I trust Ekil completely, but Brogut is a different story.
“Don’t be so obvious about your worries,” Dayne whispers to me. “The Banished leaders are watching.”
Straightening my spine, I force myself to turn away from the Halves’ receding figures. The Banished leaders are already skeptical enough without my giving them greater cause to distrust us.
“Shall we?” my aunt asks, when the other members of our party have disappeared from view.
Aunt Jadem, Dayne, and I climb onto Vlaz.
“Don’t forget to give him time to hunt,” Wokee says as he frets with the rope around Vlaz’s neck. “And don’t worry when he disappears during the high day. He’ll come back.”
I tap the roll of script tree bark peeking out of the top of my pack, the one Wokee filled with his scratchy, mostly illegible handwriting to explain the commands he trained Vlaz to obey. “We’ll take good care of him.”
Wokee gives me one of his dimpled grins, but I can see the worry lurking beneath.
“We’ll see you soon,” I tell him.
Once the three of us are settled on Vlaz, Aunt Jadem, who is sitting in the front of the makeshift saddle, whistles. Everyone else scatters as the hyenair begins to pump his wings.
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