Page 32

ROLLO

T he trees whispered his name.

Not lovingly. Not like they did for Delilah.

No—this was different. Urgent. Sharp as a blade against bark.

Rollo moved like the earth itself pushed him forward, steps landing heavy along the old hunter’s path near the western ridge. His ribs still ached where Garrick’s claws had landed weeks ago, but it wasn’t pain that fueled his stride—it was rage.

Delilah had collapsed this morning. One minute she was laughing with Junie at the market, the next her knees buckled like a string had been cut.

And he’d known.

Deep in his marrow, in the bond they’d forged—he’d felt her pain roll through him like a tide.

It was Garrick. It had always been Garrick.

The bastard wasn’t just poisoning the land anymore—he was draining it. And because Delilah had tethered her spirit to it to save him , she was now the one bleeding for it.

He crested the ridge.

The old clan site lay ahead—burnt stones, remnants of sacred bonfires, and the jagged arch of a fallen moonwood tree now split in half. The place where they’d once sparred, once shared rites of passage, now stood hollow. Dead.

And waiting.

Garrick stepped out from behind the tree like he’d been carved from its bark—shadow-thin and sharp-eyed. His magic hummed dark and coiled at his feet, rippling through the undergrowth like oil in water.

“Took you long enough,” he sneered. “Was starting to think you’d gone soft for good.”

Rollo didn’t stop walking until they were a breath apart. “You hurt her.”

Garrick tilted his head. “She chose that.”

“She chose me ,” Rollo growled, “and to save me, she tied herself to the forest you’re poisoning. You might as well have stuck your claws in her spine yourself.”

For a split second, something flickered in Garrick’s eyes. Something bitter. “I didn’t want her harmed,” he said. “Not really.”

“You didn’t care if she was. That’s worse.”

“She was never yours,” Garrick snapped, voice laced with venom. “You were too slow. Too afraid. You let fate slip right through your fingers and expected it’d just wait around for you.”

Rollo’s fist clenched.

“And now?” Garrick’s smile twisted. “You think tying her down, marking her, claiming her makes it real? It just makes her your weakness.”

The words hit harder than claws. But Rollo didn’t flinch.

“She’s not my weakness,” he said, voice low. “She’s the reason I haven’t given up.” Then he struck.

The fight exploded like a thunderclap.

Rollo’s fist slammed into Garrick’s jaw, sending him stumbling back into the brush.

Garrick snarled, shifting halfway into his bear form—jagged claws, shadowed fur, eyes lit with corrupted magic.

He launched back, claws raking across Rollo’s side, but Rollo twisted, landing a knee in Garrick’s gut and slamming him down onto the roots below.

The ground shuddered. Magic flared—black for Garrick, deep amber for Rollo.

They circled each other, breath heaving, limbs scraped and bloodied.

“I didn’t want this!” Rollo barked. “You could’ve come back. We could’ve fixed it?—”

“I don’t want fixing,” Garrick snarled. “I want power . I want the town to bow to something stronger than tradition and fear.”

“You mean you,” Rollo spat. “You want them to bow to you .”

Garrick lunged.

They crashed into the sacred stones, shattering old wards that once protected their clan rites. Magic screamed through the air as they rolled, clawing, punching, snarling. They were no longer just men—they were beasts made of fire and memory.

Then the wind stopped. The trees leaned in.And the forest spoke.

Two towering shapes emerged from the surrounding grove—slow-moving, elemental, and impossible to ignore.

They rose from the soil like old gods returning to the surface, formed of ancient bark spiraled with lichen, glowing softly from within with threads of moonlight.

Their antlered crowns brushed the canopy, and their eyes, hollow as tree knots, pulsed with forest fire and judgment.

Their presence made the air still.

Birdsong stopped. The ground ceased breathing.

Their voices didn’t come in words, not exactly, but through sensation—rippling up from the forest floor, buzzing deep in Rollo’s bones like a dirge.

Enough.

The command vibrated through his chest, a living decree that even Garrick stilled beneath.

Suddenly, the earth split in jagged lines beneath Garrick’s feet.

Roots shot up like spears, thick and fast, wrapping around his wrists and ankles with a sound like thunder cracking through stone.

The corrupted energy around him shrieked in protest, the dark veins of his magic convulsing under the spirit’s purifying force.

“You can’t have him,” came the guardians’ next decree, and this time the words were almost audible—like wind channeled through hollow trunks, ancient and absolute.

“You’ve taken enough,” Rollo growled, rising to one knee, blood dripping from split knuckles and raw palms.

The spirits’ light cast shifting shadows across his face, making him look half-wild, half-divine.

But Garrick didn’t resist.

He only smiled.

A slow, sick curve of his mouth that spread like rot.

“I was never after you ,” he said, voice smooth and curling with malice. His eyes gleamed, locked on Rollo’s like a predator who’d already tasted blood. “I was after what you love.”

He leaned his head back, as if inhaling the air left in the clearing.

“And I almost have it.”

Rollo surged to his feet, fury riding his spine like lightning. “No,” he snarled, voice like gravel breaking. “You’ll never touch her.”

The roots yanked Garrick backward, dragging him toward the grove’s edge, where shadow tangled with light like war drums waiting to strike. The forest guardians moved in unison, their limbs creaking like old wood, their command ironclad.

But Garrick—damn him—twisted just once more. Even bound, even fading into the dark, he turned.

His gaze cut through the magic between them.

“The bond is your weakness, Rollo,” he spat, his voice a blade of prophecy. “And when it breaks—so will you.”

Then the shadows swallowed him.

The grove pulsed once, and he was gone.

Silence fell.

The spirit guardians slowly turned to Rollo, their light dimming with somber gravity. One laid a hand—a great, gnarled limb of vine and bark—upon the cracked stone at the center of the clearing. Moss bloomed instantly around its fingers.

Their message, without words, echoed in his chest like a second heartbeat:

Protect the bloom. Or the rot will spread.

And then they, too, vanished into the trees, as if they had never been there at all.

Rollo stood alone, the clearing breathing slow again.

But his chest heaved.

Blood dripped from his fists, cooling on his skin.

And he didn’t know what scared him more?—

That Garrick might be right.

Or that he might not be strong enough to prove him wrong.