The deep velvet of his voice strokes me and I lean toward him. “I want you, Jacinda. With everything that I am. With my every breath. But you lost someone important to you today and you don’t have to do anything to convince me of your love.” His breath rattles a little, the warm air brushing my cheek.
I sag against him then and release the tears I’ve been holding back in his presence. I clutch his shirt until my fingers are aching and bloodless. His arms tighten around me, holding me up.
Will is a good person. Plain and simple. Otherwise he wouldn’t be here, holding me as I grieve for Cassian. He’d still be with his family of hunters. And I’d probably have died months ago.
And suddenly the need to kiss him is everything. Everything right and real. The balm to my many wounds.
My lips find his. Warm tears seep from my eyelids as our mouths fuse hotly. His hand slides through my hair. My own hands rove everywhere, touching, feeling, reveling in the strong, firm sensation of him. He makes a growling sound against my lips and my pulse skitters wildly at my throat.
Tears slide down my cheeks, the salty taste of them mingling in our kiss. Emotions war inside me, hunger, desire for him—and a broken heart for Cassian. I never would have thought such feelings could exist simultaneously. But, somehow, being with Will, losing myself in the heat of our kiss … it eases the ache inside my chest.
I press my mouth against his, focused on him, on the fusion of our lips, the sensation of his hand on the back of my head, his long fingers running through the snarls of my hair. I can’t remember the last time I brushed it. I must look a mess, but he still wants me.
I lose myself to taste and sensation. To Will. I don’t notice the shift in wind, the lift of my hair off my shoulders, the rustle of leaves in the trees … or the scent of something else on the air until it’s too late.
Miram’s scream cuts through the night, jolting me back to the present.
10
As I tear through the trees, my breath crashes from my lips and fear rides high in my chest at what I might find. Let Tamra be okay. And Miram, too. I can’t lose Cassian’s sister, not after he died to save her. Smoke gusts from my nose as Will and I explode back into the campsite at the same time.
I spot my sister immediately, standing protectively in front of Miram. Already fully manifested, Tamra is swathed in a fine cloud of vapor. As a shader, it’s all she has. A great defense when dealing with humans, but it offers no protection or defense when confronting one of our own kind. She can’t shade another draki.
And it’s a draki she faces.
I shake my head, unable to reconcile what I see. The gray draki stands, all heaving muscle and rippling sinew, before my sister. The only thing reassuring about the sight of him is that his skin lies flat and smooth, not lifted into countless blades over his body. But I know it only takes him an instant to arm for attack. I remember this well, and fear for Tamra shudders through me, too strong to resist.
I manifest, my wings surging, tearing through my shirt, my sister’s name a cry on my lips.
The gray draki looks over his shoulder at me, but makes no move, even as his gaze narrows with recognition.
Will stands beside me, his arm brushing mine.
“Why are you here?” I demand. “You’re free.” He can go anywhere. Why is he stalking us?
He looks back at Tamra. He stares at her as if he’s never seen anything like her before. My stomach quivers with unease. He looks at her like she’s a tasty snack he’d like to sample.
“You’re free,” Tamra echoes. “You can go.”
He finally looks away, but not at any of us. He looks up at the sky, stretching his throat.
I follow his gaze. At first I see nothing but dark night, then a sound reaches my ears—like great smacks of wind hitting a sail. I’d recognize it anywhere. A draki in flight.
Then it’s like the night itself moves—black liquid spilling over air that’s nearly as dark. Nearly but not quite. I make out the wings, the glow of eyes I know so well.
“Cassian,” I breathe.
He touches down without a sound, moving slower than usual—clearly injured. He nods once at the gray draki in a silent acknowledgment of sorts.
They’re together? How is that possible? Last time we saw them they were trying to kill each other.
“Cassian,” Miram cries and vaults across the distance, flinging herself into her brother’s arms. My muscles tense, wanting to do the same. But I hesitate. Things are complicated enough. While I’m thrilled and relieved that he’s alive, I’m aware of Will beside me.
I edge closer to Cassian. “You’re not dead?”
“Apparently not.”
Then I can’t help myself. I’m hugging him, feeling all the solid sensation of him for myself. “But you were in pain … I felt that … and then there was suddenly nothing. Emptiness. You … died.”
“The enkros came. I was still awake. Just dazed from the gas. They took me out with some kind of a tranquilizer.”
I step back, dropping my arms, putting distance between us as I look from him to the gray draki. “And what? You’re friends now? How’d you both get here?”
Cassian rotates his neck and glances around, the motion weary.
“When I came to, he was fighting them off. The gas didn’t work on him. He saved us both. We escaped through the tunnel you all left behind. They didn’t know what to make of it and had immediately begun to tear through it.” He shrugs one large, muscled shoulder. “I think they thought you all might have been hiding on the other side.” His gaze swings to Will and he bobs his head in a nod of thanks. And I know he’s thanking Will for more than the tunnel. He’s thanking him for saving me, for saving his sister. All of us.
He’s thanking Will for listening and leaving him behind. Will can’t understand a word he’s saying, but I see in his face that he understands this.
I jerk a thumb toward the gray draki again. “And now you trust him?”
“I wouldn’t have made it out of there without him. He broke free first and took out several of the enkros guarding us.” He looks down at himself. “Do you have any clothes handy?”
I motion to the van, assuming his things are still in there. He takes off toward it in long strides, his sister following.
I turn my attention back to the gray draki. He looks in no hurry to demanifest, still staring at Tamra with such sole focus that annoyance begins to heat and prick at my skin. I’m not sure I could demanifest right now even if I willed it.
Tamra doesn’t look wholly comfortable with the attention she’s getting either. She glances around herself and bends down, gathering her clothes, mostly ruined. She holds them self-consciously to her chest and edges away, walking backward from this draki that can’t stop staring at her as though he might gobble her up at any moment.
She darts toward the van where Cassian and Miram disappeared, leaving me, Will, and the gray one alone.
He steps forward as though he might follow Tamra. I block his path, my chest heaving, the smolder eating its way up my windpipe. I shake my head in warning at him.
His eyes flare as he comes face-to-face with me. He remembers me well.
“She’s my sister,” I announce as if that should squash his interest in her. He did try to kill me, after all—something I haven’t forgotten, no matter that I might sympathize with his motivation at the time. He looks from me to her retreating figure and back at me again.
And still, he holds himself maddeningly silent.
“Don’t you have somewhere else to go?” I wave a hand, motioning in the direction Lia took. “You’re free.”
A low rumble rises from his chest, not quite a growl, but close.
I angle my head. “What? You don’t speak?”
“Jacinda, what are you doing? Trying to irritate him?” Will moves up beside me, ready to jump into any potential fray that may erupt. He can’t understand my words but he recognizes my provoking tone. His square jaw clenches tightly, a muscle feathering the flesh of his cheek.
The rumble comes again, even less growllike, almost like the draki tongue … and then I realize it is the draki tongue. The sound is a little rusty from disuse and neglect, but it’s undeniably draki speech. “Listen to the human. Don’t get in my face, fire-breather.”
His voice, so deep and guttural, startles me—more than the threat of his words. Footsteps sound behind me and I see that Tamra approaches hesitantly, dressed in a T-shirt and jeans, looking both normal and eerily beautiful with her frosty eyes and silvery hair.
Her wide eyes raptly fix on the gray draki in front of me. She looks less uncomfortable now. I frown. Less uncomfortable and more intrigued, and this only makes me uncomfortable. I don’t know anything about this guy except that he’s built for killing—the perfect weapon. But then, so am I.
“Maybe we should demanifest,” I suggest, glancing from his body to mine, glimmering in the night. “That might make us both feel easier.”
He angles his head and gives me a funny look. “I’m not uneasy.”
Of course not. He can sprout a thousand blades all over his body in a mere heartbeat. Why should he feel uneasy?
“Just demanifest,” I snap.
It’s a long while before he answers. “I don’t know how.”
I’m slow to process his words, but once I do, I pull back, needing the distance, not feeling safe so close to this draki that is essentially a dragon.
“What?” Will asks, immediately registering my reaction and knowing something is wrong. “Can you demanifest and talk to me? Tell me what’s going on?”
“She asked him to demanifest and he said he can’t,” Tamra explains, stepping closer to me. But she’s careful to stay behind me. Like she’s afraid of getting too close to this draki.
“What do you mean?” I demand.
He doesn’t know how? How is that possible? That’s what we are—what a draki does. The human part of us is every bit as real as the draki.
“It’s been too long,” he says. “I don’t remember how.”
I look him up and down. “How long have you been like this?”
“Since they captured me and my pride.”
They captured his entire pride?
As though he can read my mind, he continues, “My pride had been hunted for so long. We were just a handful at the end. Seventeen of us. No children. Now I’m all that’s left.”
I shudder, thinking of this, of how it must feel to be captured alongside of everyone you know and love, family and friends. To lose them all. “How long were you a prisoner?” I repeat, an ache starting in my chest.
He shakes his head, tossing his ash blond waves. His hair falls past his shoulders—as matted and wild as the rest of him. “I can’t know for sure,” he says in that raspy voice. “You don’t count the days in there. It’s not possible. It feels as though I spent several lifetimes in those walls.”
I nod, well remembering how the single day I spent in that cell felt so much longer. Forever.
“I watched my kin die all around me. They either faded away until death claimed them or the enkros killed them with their experiments. I wished for death, so that I could be free, too.” He tilts his face up to the night, clearly savoring the wind on his face. The ridges along his nose flex with breath.
“And now you are free,” I say.
“It’s been so long. I was fourteen when I went in.” His lips twist, the top lip curling over a flash of bone-white teeth.
Tamra gasps behind me.
He levels that smile of sorts on her. “I’m guessing I don’t look fourteen any longer?”
No. No, he doesn’t. He looks hardened and experienced. Probably older than I am.
He’s been with them for years. My thoughts reel. At least four years, I would guess. And a draki all this time. No wonder he’s so primitive … such a savage.