There is hope in Hyde’s eyes, and it’s real and honest and so different from the physical hunger I’m accustomed to seeing in the gazes of men.
I lick my lips, choosing my next words with care. “You do know me, Hyde.”
I am blatantly fishing for more.
No. I’m not fishing. He is on the line, and I’m reeling him in.
“True.” Hyde blinks, his smile wobbling. “I meant know you better.”
It’s the exact answer I expected. Exactly what I wanted to hear.
“You haven’t lost your chance.” I lean closer to him. “How can you lose a chance if you haven’t even taken it?”
He holds perfectly still for a long moment. Then he inclines his head a little to the side, bringing his face closer to mine. His blue eyes drop to my mouth. We’re close enough that I can see every fine hair on his jaw. This is my chance to retreat, but I don’t.
A delicious spell has fallen over me. I want this. And I’m moving on. This is what it means to move on.
I feel Hyde’s hand cradle the back of my head, but I need no encouragement to draw closer.
Our lips meet and hold, both of us stiff with awkwardness for an instant. Then Hyde’s lips part and his tongue slides, velvet soft, against mine.
Desire seeps through my limbs like warm honey as we find our way, shifting closer.
He is patient and gentle at first, but then he becomes playful. He nibbles at my bottom lip, and I can tell he’s smiling. He’s a happy kisser. A girl could fall in love with that, I think.
Heat curls in my veins, and I reach for him, wanting more.
His shoulders feel different, not quite rounded enough with muscle, but I ignore that.
His hand is on my back, the pressure too light. I ignore that too.
I focus on the movement of his mouth over mine, which is full of affection and care. He kisses like a poet. Like he’s writing poems on my lips.
But it lacks something. A confidence. A ferocity I’m familiar with.
Ignore, Brooke.
Ignore. Ignore. Ignore.
It’s too late. I realize I’m getting in my head too much, because I hear the leaves rustle with a breeze. Hyde senses my hesitation, and his hand stills on my cheek. I feel the softest tremble of his fingers on my skin. I don’t want it to tremble. I am past tremble.
Perry knew I liked him to take control. He knew what I wanted. By now he would have—
I suck in a breath, feeling like an arrow has sliced right through my heart.
I jerk back. Hyde’s eyes fly open. We both freeze for an endless instant. Then I jump to my feet.
My legs shake beneath me as shame and lust play tug-of-war in my body. How could I think about Perry just then? What is wrong with me?
Hyde scrubs a hand over his face. “I’m sorry, Brooke. Was that too much?”
I’m so confused. I don’t know what just happened. No. I do know. Kissing Hyde wasn’t too much. It wasn’t too little, either. It just wasn’t kissing Perry.
“No. It was great.” My voice comes out scratchy, like I’m going to cry.
Hyde rises to his feet. For a moment I think he’s going to leave, but he doesn’t. He steps closer. “The last thing I want to do is hurt you. I really like you. I know about you and Perry, and maybe this was too soon. Maybe it’s not the right time, with all that’s happening. But I don’t care. I’ll wait for you.”
“I like you too, Hyde.” It’s the truth. He is thoughtful and romantic, and I should appreciate him for who he is, instead of just seeing him as not like Perry. “It’s just that . . .” I bite my lip, not wanting to explain to him that he is amazing but I am the one who is a mess. “You shouldn’t wait for me.”
I don’t know how I’m supposed to move on, but I do know that having him wait for me isn’t going to help.
Hyde’s gaze darts past me suddenly. He lets out a curse, his posture tensing. In an instant he is all warrior again. A sentry who has just spotted danger.
Our waiting is over.
4
In the midst of a scrubby stand of birches roughly a mile away, I see what has alarmed him.
Three people. Too far for me to see their faces. Close enough that I can tell they are all men. We watch them for a few moments, taking in the practiced stealth of their movements. How their progress is careful and furtive, and runs parallel to the well-trod trail instead of on it. There is no doubt in my mind—they are attempting to stay concealed. The men in the distance aren’t weary travelers seeking asylum. They are hostile.
Hyde comes to the same conclusion. “That’s trouble.”
“Let’s run them off.”
Hyde pulls his bow and quiver over his shoulder. His eyes blaze with intensity, and his muscles are coiled and rigid, like he’s ready to spring forward. There’s not a trace of kindness or playfulness in him anymore.
He gives a tight nod, and we jog down the hill toward the trespassers.
With a hundred yards still to go, Hyde and I slow to a quiet prowl. We could shout at them to leave from here. We could engage them with our bows. Hyde is a brilliant archer, as accurate as I am. But I have a clear view of the three men now. They have stopped walking, and I can see their faces.
And I know them.
I freeze. Hyde reacts immediately, stopping with me.
“Is it Roar?” he murmurs, sensing the shock that’s swept over me.
I shake my head. Roar’s return would be a great thing. This is not.
Anger ignites inside me, and I surge forward. My strides are fast and long, fueled by an endless flow of rage.
Hyde is next to me as we break through the tree line and come into the open. The three men stand on a rise above us, and Hyde and I have no cover. I have put us in the worst position possible, but I don’t care.
“Wylan!” I slow to a jog and reach back, grabbing an arrow from my quiver and nocking it. “Don’t move!”
His head whips to me. His eyes flare with surprise; then his expression transforms into something venomous and hateful as he recognizes me.
I approach the rest of the way slowly so I can keep my aim steady, my arrow ready to fly if necessary. Hyde holds pace beside me, his bow also drawn and nocked. As I have Wylan in my sights, Hyde swings his arrow between the other two traitors, Gray and Norris.
Hyde was there the night Gray poisoned Aria. He was also there the morning Wylan took a third of the tribe and left, renouncing his loyalty to Perry and to us—the Tides. He knows as well as I do that these three were forbidden ever to come back.
I stop when we are forty paces away. Wylan stands with his hands raised in surrender, looking from me to Hyde.
The strength of my vision allows me to see him as clearly as most people see at five paces. Weeks in the borderlands have not been good to him. His brow is heavier and lower. His pointy jaw juts out farther. His grimy skin sags like a plant that has wilted in the midday sun. Clothes that are no more than rags drape on his bony, stooping form. He has always had a pinched face, like he’s just swallowed ash. In the time since he left us, he only appears to have become more bitter.
“What are you doing here?” I ask. There is a soullessness to his black eyes that chills me.
“I came to talk to Peregrine.”
“Perry would kill you.”
“Then I’m lucky to have come by you first.”
“I may kill you myself.”
Wylan’s nostrils flare, and his chin rises slightly in suppressed anger. He has never liked me. “I mean no harm, Brooke. I’ve come to ask forgiveness.” He glances at the two men at his sides. “We have.”
“You’re seeking forgiveness?” It seems impossible. It’s a word I’d never expect to hear from his mouth. But he nods.
“Yes. I want to come home.”
There is something in the way he lingers over the word home. Does he know we’ve abandoned the compound?
“Please, Brooke. We’re tired. We want to be back with our tribe. Take us home with you.
”
“No chance,” Hyde growls. He stands motionless at my side, his legs firmly set, his form perfect. The picture of an archer at his most lethal position.
“Tell Peregrine, then,” Wylan says. “I beg you, Brooke. Take the message for me. Tell him I want to speak to him. He’ll forgive me. At least give me a chance.”
Hyde says, “I’ve heard enough.”
I have too.
I drop my aim and let my arrow fly. It sinks deep into the earth between Wylan’s feet.
He lets out a yelp and lurches back, but Hyde’s arrow flies an instant later, also landing inches from Wylan’s foot.
“Idiots!” Wylan yells, retreating frantically. “You’re insane!”
“Get out of here,” I tell him. “Come back to this land again and it’ll be your death.”
After we run them off, Hyde and I hold our post until the morning watch relieves us. We talk about Wylan. I am surprised by the fisherman’s return—Wylan has always been so proud, so stubborn—but Hyde is not.
“You don’t know the borderlands,” he says to me. He is right. I don’t know them, nor do I want to. “Pride is the first thing you lose out there,” he continues. “And the most painless. The trick is to hold on to your honor. There are no laws. No rules beyond the ones you choose to live by.” He gives me a faint smile. “If you break those, you make an enemy of yourself, and that’ll destroy you faster than anything else.”
I stare at him, marveling at how everything he says intrigues me. Questions pop into my head, but I hardly know where to start. I just want him to keep talking.
Hyde raises his eyebrows questioningly.
“We were good together,” I blurt, just to say something, and I could kick myself. What I meant is how we handled Wylan. How it felt like we were perfectly in tune through the entire encounter. I don’t want him to think I meant anything more.
I don’t want to hurt Hyde. The hope I saw in his eyes earlier is a precious thing; I’m afraid I’ll destroy that part of him. And if I do that, I could lose this—my connection with this warrior who is fierce and perfect at my side. This poet, whose words twinkle like stars before my eyes.
A smile spreads over Hyde’s lips. It’s affectionate and understanding and gentle. “Incredible,” he says. “It was an encounter to remember.”
I still don’t know if we’re talking about our kiss or our stand against Wylan, but it doesn’t matter. I don’t fear anymore. I know, whatever happens between us, Hyde and I will be fine.
“It was,” I agree. “It sure was.”
When the morning patrollers arrive, we fill them in and then return to the cave, where we assemble in the Battle Room, a small cavern Perry uses to discuss important matters.
There is a table here. A long wooden trestle brought from the compound, and benches and chairs. I drop into one of them. I never expected that sitting in a chair would feel like such a luxury.
Hyde sits on my left. Across the table are Reef, Marron, and Perry. They remain silent and serious as Hyde and I take turns describing what happened.
“Bold of them to show up,” Reef mutters gruffly. “They know they aren’t welcome here.”
Bold is putting it mildly. I still can’t get over Wylan’s gall.
I look at Perry, anticipating his reaction. I hate Wylan for betraying my tribe, but it’s personal for Perry. Wylan insulted him in front of the Tides. And then there’s Gray, who tried to poison Aria. But Perry seems calm. Thoughtful. Nowhere near as furious as I expected.
“He didn’t come to make amends,” he says.
I say, “He said he wanted forgiveness.”
Perry shakes his head. “That’s an excuse. A story he came up with to explain why he was here. Wylan knows I’d never forgive him. He wouldn’t have risked coming back unless he needed something.”
I press my lips together. I didn’t consider that Wylan might have trespassed onto our land with another motive in mind.
“Maybe he was trying to get to the compound,” Reef says. “There are still supplies there, and it’s unguarded. We left plenty behind that could be valuable. They could fetch a man some bartering power in the borderlands.”
It’s true. We couldn’t bring all our belongings with us into the cave. Tools. Furniture. Clothing. We had to leave most of our things behind.
Marron shakes his head. “A plausible theory, but unlikely. There were only three men on foot. Carrying away goods would be impractical and difficult. I don’t know that the effort would justify the reward.” He looks at Perry. “You don’t believe he’s motivated by revenge?”
Another long pause as Perry thinks it over. I imagine Perry has a whole host of memories with Wylan. He’s a Seer, like me, so his recollections would be strongly visual. But he’s a Scire as well. Perry would have scent memories—all the tempers he’s scented from Wylan. They would form a pattern, a reliable way to predict behavior. And, by working backward, the root of behavior: motivation.
Finally, he responds. “Wylan loves himself more than he hates me.”
Marron nods, like this statement makes all manner of sense. “Self-preservation, then. He’s driven by visceral, life-sustaining needs.”
“Shelter,” Reef says.
“The cave and the food stores we have here,” Marron says, nodding. “That’s what he’s after.”
I remember the way Wylan’s voice pulled at the word home. He’d made it sound syrupy, and now I recognize that tone as falseness. Home implies an emotional attachment, but that’s not what he wanted. What Wylan wanted was a roof over his head.
“But they were only three,” Hyde says.
“You told me that when they dispersed, they took a third of the tribe,” Marron says to Perry.
“A quarter. Almost a hundred people.”
I can’t help but remember Aria’s Marking ceremony, when Gray slipped hemlock into Aria’s tattoo ink. She almost died. Perry beat Gray to a pulp in front of everyone when he learned what Gray had done.
That attempt to poison Aria fractured my tribe. Some people sided with Perry and his right to defend Aria. Others, led by Wylan, saw it as a betrayal. They viewed Aria as a Mole, an interloper who shouldn’t have been there to begin with.
I was one of them. I didn’t want her there. But I didn’t want to see her killed, either. I stayed with the Tides that day, but dozens of people left. Their faith in Perry as a Blood Lord was shattered. They broke oath and followed Wylan out of the Tide compound. That morning I lost friends I had never spent a single day without. It was like losing Liv, but worse. Liv didn’t choose to go.
“You think the others are still with them?” I ask. “Hiding in the borderlands somewhere?”
Marron turns a ring around his finger as he replies. “Wylan was their leader when they left. He still could be. His entry into the territory could have been a scouting pass. The tip of the spear, probing for weakness.”
“You think he’s coming back with a larger attack,” Perry says.
It is more a statement than a question—he has already accepted it—but Marron replies anyway.
“Yes. We have to be prepared for it.”
5
When I finally make it to my tent, I’m crushed to find it empty.
Clara isn’t here.
I want to go search for her, but I’m too exhausted. Normally, Hyde and I would have traded shifts, two hours on watch, two hours asleep, but we’d felt it best to double up after what had happened with Wylan, both of us alert for danger. We were thrumming with adrenaline too, but now that rush has faded and my eyes won’t stay open.
I collapse onto my bed pad and barely pull my boots off before I plunge into sleep.
At some point I feel the covers shift, and I emerge from the rainbow colors of a dream to see Clara. She burrows under my blanket and nestles beside me. It’s the middle of the day, and she shouldn’t be here, but I love that she is. I love that my sister has come to find me. I pull her close and drift back to sleep, breathing in her s
trawberry scent.
When I finally wake, Clara is still sleeping. In my dreams I saw her standing in the rain, shaking and crying. Great big hiccups came out of her between sobs as she said, Don’t leave me, over and over.
But then I touch my shirt, feeling the dampness at my breastbone, and I know it wasn’t a dream. Not all of it, anyway.
I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how to help her. She’s not like Talon, who seems to have returned without missing a step. Talon lost his parents and his aunt, and yet whenever I see him he is laughing and running off somewhere with Willow and Flea, no sign at all of being scarred.
Not my sister.
Don’t leave me, she cried in my arms.
Clara isn’t lost, like I thought before. She’s worried we’ll turn our backs on her again. Sell her again. She is afraid of being betrayed. She is afraid that if she lets herself love, she’ll only be abandoned again.
And I understand that. I won’t pretend what I’ve gone through is the same, with Perry, but it’s not different, either.
I am afraid too.
Fear is what pulled me away from Hyde.
An unexpected sadness washes over me as I remember what he said. That he wanted to know me. He was opening his heart, but I couldn’t because mine is closed. Mine is bruised and wailing and grasping to stay afloat. Mine is hiding in a corner, terrified it will be discarded again.
And I don’t want it to be.
So much, I don’t want it to be.
A lump rises in my throat as the urge to talk to someone slams into me. I need to tell someone how lonely I feel. How Perry and Liv and Roar left a hole in my life that I don’t know how to fill. I need someone to tell me that everything will be all right.
Molly.
Molly is strong, like my mother isn’t. I don’t have to worry that my problems will burden her with worry. No one else is as wise and understanding.
I pull on my boots, tuck the blankets in around Clara, and jog to the Dweller cave, because that’s where I’ll surely find Molly.
Right away I see that the situation in here has deteriorated. The Dwellers are not shivering and drifting in and out of consciousness anymore. They are silent and still and barely breathing, and there is nothing even partly amusing about it.
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