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And that’s simply not okay.

I lift my free leg from his chest and slam my knee back down. He groans and clamps his hand tighter on my ass, so I do it again. And again. Until he wraps his arm around the backs of my knees, and I’m stuck.

“You little—” His body goes rigid, then sways. He grunts, and we fall from his great height, my stomach tumbling. But before we hit the ground, I’m scooped into arms.

I open my mouth to scream at the bloody knife in hand, but a cloth is rammed inside—wet and stiff and cold against the roof of my mouth. It’s shoved in so far and tight that I can’t spit it out. I scream anyway, a muffled cry lost in the folds of fabric. Still blinded by my hair, the arms hold me around my back and under my knees with my arms trapped, pressed to a chest as wet and cold as mine.

Before he speaks, I know him by his scent. “Quiet for once,” Eli hisses. “You’ll get yourself killed.”

Even Eli’s arms are a better option than the other man, or being on my own and hunted. I shake the hair from my eyes, and twist my neck to look back. The man lies on his stomach in the mud, a river of red running from his back, right where his heart would be. With all the loss of life in my visions, I expect the violence of a real death to hit the same, but no—it’s soothing. Entrancing. Alluringly final. I shouldn’t feel like this. I turn away and bury my face in Eli’s chest.

He carries me through the dense trees, knife still in hand, pulling his arms so tight around me that a torrent of rainwater punches the ground, wrung from my clothes. I breathe through my nose, recovering from the fright and knowing I should still feel it even in his arms, but I don’t.

“Don’t you understand yet?” he scolds. I look up at him—his face dripping, curls flattened to his forehead, jaw tight. “You can’t escape me.”

And for this moment, that’s okay if it means I’m safe.

He walks far enough that the only sound is the constant drum of rain, and the only signs of life are the beats of our hearts and breaths, rapping and riveting through me like his song.

I wiggle an arm loose. He lets me, knowing I can’t get out of his hold, and trusting—I assume—I won’t scream again. I pull the cloth from my mouth.

“I can walk.”

His arms curl tighter around me. “I know.”

My fist loosens on the cloth at his words. Does hewantto carry me? The fabric unfolds, and it’s not a cloth at all.

“You stuffed my underwear in my mouth?”

Even from this angle I can see the edges of a grin trying to surface. “I’m going to need that back.”

This man.I swear. I don’t know what to think.

Watching him closely, I reach my hand up to his face. He flinches, his wet brows furrowing in confusion, but he doesn’t have a free arm to stop me. To keep him from tripping and sending me flying into a tree, I push the wet curls from his eyes—one side, then the other—running my fingers just above his brows. He glances at me for a mere second, drops streaking over his stubble, and I sink further into his chest with the rush of air he lets out.

He squeezes me tight again, my knee bones bumping, shoulders folding. “I could crush you.” Fingers slide down my wet neck, darkness on my cheeks.

I pull his shirt snug in my fist. “Don’t you understand yet?” He doesn’t bother looking at me. He doesn’t know that I die and die and die and always live to face another death, another vision. “I’m uncrushable.”

Chapter

Twenty-Six

ELIVANDER

I carry Never’s wet body, leaving the bleeding man behind us. Dead fucker. His fault for touching her.

She’s mine.

My clothes cling to her soaked body. I hold her arms down to keep her from pulling the panties from her mouth. We’ll be caught if she screams.

I already almost lost her.

And it terrified the fuck out of me.

Sypher was sitting on the couch, staring at her empty nook when I got to the castle. One look at his regretful face and I knew what he’d done. I’ve been searching the woods ever since.I didn’t have to ask what she did. I know she used that perfect fucking mouth to push him over the edge, then ran. She left the castle—and me. Of course, her only thought was of Kelter. She ran tohim.

Which is why I didn’t tell her the Centress’ plan for him. She would have done exactly this—find a way to leave me and nearly get herself killed. I’m not even going to punish her…though I have some tempting ideas. I only want her safely locked up so this can’t happen again.