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A snarl grates from my mouth. It takes a mammoth amount of willpower to refrain from bulldozing my fist through the crate of his chest.

Lark regroups. Her teeth flash as she wraps the end of the whip around her fist and uses the leverage to make him gag. She plants her foot on his clavicles and leans in. “Touch me again, dickhead, and I’ll fuck up your world.”

The firebird glares and speaks through a roasted voice. “More than you already have?”

With deadly eloquence, I rest the helix tip of my javelin over his heart. “Who sent you?”

“I came on my own.”

Lark tightens the whip, dislodging another gargle from him. “Try again, hon.”

“I will,” he swears. “Trust me. And next time, I’ll aim for your—”

My fist rams into his face, bone cracking and blood spurting from his loose teeth. Violence sizzles my knuckles. Another threat to my mate, and the next blow will separate his head from his neck.

“I’d rather not ask again,” I murmur. “Who. Sent. You?”

The firebird just cackles and sputters through rivulets of crimson. “You won’t see us coming. You won’t see his next move until it’s too late, just like last night,” he foams. “Just like now.”

From his boot, the Fae pulls another blade, which spears toward Lark. Again, we move as one. She jolts on the whip and stalls him in place while I block the knife’s flight with the hilt of my javelin.

On a hiss, I twist and use my weapon to shove the knife back the way it came, straight into his torso. The blade shears through flesh like a stake and punctures his lungs. Then I spin the javelin in the opposite direction, the tip ripping open his left wing.

The Fae’s eyes pop in surprise, then gleam like a zealot’s. He goes limp and puddles to the grass. Life slowly leaks out of him, the blisters of his pupils on the verge of dulling.

It’s one thing to rupture a mountain Fae’s organ. But to mutilate their wings is an act of barbarism. However, I’m not done yet.

Kneeling, I thrust out my palm. The wind shoves the Fae across the precipice and sweeps him over the cliff’s ledge.

He’s too weak to fly, but he’s still alive enough to shriek on the way down, not only from the fall but from the speed. At this elevation, it is never a quick descent. Yet I’m hardly satisfied until the wind hears my appeal.

Air pressure condenses further, fabricating a descent that lasts much longer. The Fae shall suffer on the way down. He’ll be conscious of every league closer to the ground, with nothing but anticipation to keep him company.

His screeches whittle to a puff, but I still hear him. Shortly before he lands, the wind breaks like a chain, and gravity rushes through like water from a ruptured dam. The buildup of his fall compiles, which makes the crash harsher, wilder, and messier.

A gust blusters in his wake. Then all that remains of him is a smoking puddle on the forest floor.

I rise slowly and turn to Lark, who slumps to the ground and gawks at me. Several dots of red have spritzed across her cheek.

We lock gazes, then drop our weapons and grab for each other. I crush her to me and press my lips to the crown of her head, and she flings her shaking arms around my waist. Together, we stare at the promontory’s rim, over the side where the Fae had plummeted.

You won’t see his next move until it’s too late.

His next move. So they’ve established a leader.

Someone who would defy natural law by turning the fauna into weapons.

Someone who would deliver an assassin into a neutral wildlife haven, where survivors of The Trapping roam.

Someone more extremist than my brothers and I have ever been.

6

However, if this leader fancies himself more vicious, they’re wrong. Push us, and we’ll drive our fists through our adversary’s heart.

He wants to start a game? Oh, we’re good at that.

Hours later, on the brink of eventide, the moon is but a rendering of itself, a sketch of white in the inked sky. Cobalt brushes the vertexes in drowsy strokes, which will soon dissolve into nefarious shades of black and blue—a hybrid color I’m well associated with, from my hair, to my wings, to my lips. Once nighttime cloaks this region, the midnight shade will deepen, and thick piles of clouds will hover above us.