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Now, after Agnar’s warnings of warriors who will aim to hunt Nari on the mountain, Daxeel decides he can’t risk her life so soon. He needs her alive at the summit.

Daxeel needs Nari to train.

18

††††††

I’m being cooked alive.

The heat under these furs is sweltering. The Warmth seeps in through the cracks of the bedchamber windows with the power of two roaring fireplaces.

The air is too thick.

Might help if I pull the furs off my head at least to breathe, but no—I’m in hiding.

I’m hiding from whoever is coming up the corridor to my bedchamber. The familiar creaks of the floorboards I’ve learned over this past week.

I listen as the fourth creak with the highest pitch betrays the approach of my unwanted visitor.

Strange thing is, I hear no actual footsteps. No thud of a boot on the wood boards, no scuff of a heel to tell me who is coming.

It’s silence after the fourth creak—

Until a knock shudders the door.

Buried beneath layer of furs, I frown my sweaty brow in the shadows of my little cocoon. The knock was only a single tap of the fist on the doorframe. A knock I don’t recognize, or at least haven’t heard since I started my self-burial.

“I know you are awake, heartbreaker. Open the door.”

The frown digs deeper into my face until it warps into a scowl.

Alasdare.

That explains the silent footsteps. It’s the way he moves, trained to be a spy, a shadow that not even the sharpest and most perceptive of his own kind could detect.

But he wanted me to know he was coming, otherwise he wouldn’t have stepped on the creaky boards. That was his kindness.

Still, I ignore him.

I’m motionless beneath the furs. My breaths are stifled, the air is thick, and my clammy body is rigid.

Go away, go away, go away.

In all the phases I’ve been sweating away in this bed, I haven’t even unlocked the door for Eamon, and he’s come a few times. I just want to be alone.

A flinch strikes through me.

Dare’s fist comes down on the doorframe once more. “If you don’t open the door, I’ll let myself in.”

No, you won’t. The door is locked. I’m not a complete idiot.

Guess I’m idiot enough, though.

Idiot enough to fool myself into believing I was snaring Daxeel again. That he might love me more than hate me. That he wasn’t going to end the bond, endme.

A fisted ache rises up my chest.

I shut my eyes on the tears brewing and push all reminders of my fate out of mind.