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She frowns at him, then, red raw eyes narrowing. “You were the one chasing me?” Her voice is quiet, painfully rough.

He nods. “I called to you but you kept running. I am sorry. I scared you.”

Her frown deepens. “You nearly drowned me.”

“In my defense, I also pulled you out.”

Her head falls back to the unyielding roots of the tree, and she says, “Thank you.”

“What happened to ‘I don’t need your help’?”

She shakes her head, and another shiver rolls through her, racks her body in tremors so powerful that they knock her teeth together. Ryon reaches for her, and although he knows he shouldn’t, that it will sting later, he heaves her shivering body into his lap and encloses them both in his wings, shielding them from the bite of the breeze.

She lays her head against his shoulder, exhausted. Her eyes close, and he wants to stay here, no sight or sound to disturb him but her. They do not speak, but eventually, the quakes of her body slow, her skin warms where it touches his, and she opens her eyes. They are so very close to his, so unerring in their hold on him. Of course, she has never shied away. It is likely she does not know how. She wears boldness like a cloak, claims to separate desire from true attachment, but he knows he cannot do the same. He cannot have just her body and not become starved for the rest of her. Even now, he longs to brush his lips to hers, soak in the relief that she did not drown. Her body was not stolen down the water’s path. It is here, with him. But he cannot keep her, she cannot keep him, and the thought is a gravity he must walk with. Already, his knees want to buckle.

His mouth seeks hers without permission. Her face moves, too, and then, he is connected with her again, their lips molded. He makes his hands move softly, gliding over her jaw, her chin. He groans the way a starved man would – hungry, deprived. He delves deeper, deeper, knowing that when he resurfaces, the ache will return, renewed and vengeful.

It is incomparable – this feeling of falling into her.

He jerks suddenly. The sound. The whisper of wings on the wind above. He feels his wings tensing, opening in readiness. His skin pricks, and his hands pull the woman within them closer, the one he wants to claim.

They are coming.

With Dawsyn in his arms, he jolts from the ground, his blood cooling rapidly. The air is full of them – Glacians – their wings moving the forest unnaturally. Branches and their leaves lean away as they descend, bending to escape.

Ryon swears between his teeth and feels Dawsyn slide her limp body away from his, her hand already reaching for her ax. She knows as he does that it is too late to run. There is nowhere to hide.

The hunters land, finally finding their catch.

Ryon has no weapon. When he found that Dawsyn had left the inn, he threw himself into flight, barely glancing to check that no Glacian prowled the skies. Now here, they lingered too close to the riverbank, where the forest splits in two and opens to the sky. Easy targets, sitting prey.

Six of them, prowling, blocking every path out, except the one the river offers. Only one of them captures Ryon’s attention. Phineas. His guardian. His friend.

“Half-breed, so nice to see you’re not dead,” says Oscka, a Glacian so old that even the iskra has failed to take the bend from his spine.

Ryon ignores him. The only Glacian worth looking at is the one who watched over Ryon as he grew, who taught him to fight, taught him to fly. But Phineas either cannot or will not meet his eye. He looks down, away, anywhere but at the boy he pulled from the Colony, and it tells Ryon too much.

“I never thought I’d call you a coward, Phineas. Though I suppose if you weren’t, you’d be long since dead.”

Phineas’s pale eyes skitter over Ryon and away. “You’re a fool, Ryon, and you’ve made your choices.”

“Come now, you two! I’ve never heard tell of the adopted half-breed speaking so ill of his benefactor,” Oscka sneers. “Your father would be appalled if he wasn’t splattered along the bottom of the Chasm.”

Ryon feels the press of talons against the skin of his toes, preparing to burst through flesh and leather. How they long to tear the smug looks from their faces.

But Dawsyn tightens her grip on the ax handle, switching her dagger from hilt to blade in her palm as she measures each one of them. Her clothes stick to her, slick with river water, and he can see her form trembling with cold, with the aftermath of near-death. If he takes her and leaps into flight, they will be followed, and he will not be able to fight and carry Dawsyn at the same time. He cannot risk throwing them both into the river’s current again and hope that Dawsyn will survive its clutches a second time. They’ll need to fight – but there is little hope of succeeding.

“Come with us, Ryon. The King wants nothing more than to see you returned,” Oscka says.

Ryon snickers. “Tell him that I respectfully decline.”

Oscka whistles. “I’ll tell you, brothers. This girl’s snatch must be sweeter than the pool for our friend to fall so low.”

The other Glacians snigger.

Ryon feels it when the talons break the skin on his toes, threatening to shred their confines, but he was born with their mockery in his ears, and he will not gift them his control so easily. “You’ll never get to find out, Oscka, you sentient sack of ash.”

“Ah, but of course we know who she is, Ryon, you clever little shit. Tell me, how did you know about her? What do you plan?”