Page 25

And then she’ll have won this childish game of wills.

She is almost upon the water now, its sound surrounding her as it tumbles off the mountain. She hears Ryon’s heavy breathing from somewhere close behind her, but she has reached it already. He is too late.

The shallow stream of water, a hand-width’s worth, melts tunnels into the ice and flows over a cliff face. Dawsyn marvels at it. For the first time, she sees water that runs rather than boils. It folds and bends over the forest floor, impervious to any blockade and it looks as mesmerizing as it sounds.

Hands close over her upper arms and suddenly she is in the air, her body hoisted away from the edge of the stream and flung roughly against the trunk of a towering spruce.

Ryon holds her there, his hands on her biceps, his face looming. “What the fuck are you doing?”

Dawsyn falters. His breath comes in great clouds of steam, cloaking her. Enraged, the Glacian bares his teeth, but his eyes… his eyes are wide with alarm.

“This shelf is nothing but melting ice!” he roars. “One slip and you’d go over.”

Panting in great, dry heaves, Dawsyn barks out a laugh in his bewildered face. “Ice? I was born on ice! Your kind made sure the span of my life was spent on the edge of a fucking Chasm! Do you truly believe I know nothing of ice?” And with that, Dawsyn tilts her head and then throws it at the bridge of Ryon’s nose.

He swears loudly, his eyes squeezed shut, but to his credit, he does not back away despite the blood that trickles down to his lips.

When she goes to raise her knee to his crotch, he stops her, throwing his body against hers, effectively blocking any attempt she can make to hurt him further.

“Stop!” he shouts as she thrashes against him. “Stop!” His voice echoes off the mountain, scaring ravens from their perches.

She does.

Their bodies heave against the other, riled and trembling. Expectant, Dawsyn awaits the assault, awaits the pain. It is far from her first time under the influence of a man’s hands, but never has one managed to overpower her. So, she waits for his hand to wander to her breast, his fingers to paw at the apex of her thighs, his tongue to push through her teeth. Or if not that, then to knock her to the ground, to stomp her flat.

He does neither.

He is a Glacian and she has wounded him, yet he does nothing, where so many humans before him did anything, everything.

Ryon turns his head and spits the blood from his lips. “Feel better?”

Dawsyn shudders, the adrenaline waning. “Get off me.”

“As you wish,” he sneers. “Do mind the ice, won’t you?”

His hands, his body, they leave her all at once, and where his weight pressed her down, she now feels hollow.

“Drink your fill. We need to move on.”

A shuddering impact sounds from above them. The snap of a branch.

Dawsyn wheels and her eyes search high.

The last hunter crouches in the tree, his great wings frozen mid-reach.

“Ryon?” he says.

This Glacian is older than the others, his charcoal hair thinner, his eyes paler. They become round with shock as they flit between the two on the ground, a foot apart.

A whoosh of disturbed air from behind her makes Dawsyn turn in time to see dark wings – far larger than her whole being – unfurl from Ryon’s spine, where before, there was nothing.

His knees bend, as though preparing to leap, but his eyes do not leave the Glacian in the tree above. “Easy, Phineas.”

The hunter abruptly drops from his perch, his taloned feet biting into the snow and rock before them. Ryon repositions quickly, his back to her, blocking her path.

“You haven’t taken her?” the old Glacian asks, incredulous. He does not ready himself to attack, but his expression implores Ryon. “My friend, what are you doing here with the human?”

Ryon remains coiled, tense and afraid. “Go from here, Phineas. She is not your catch.”