Page 37

37

DAIN

T he night stretches before me, vast and endless, but she is the only thing I see. The only thing I chase.

The moment she fled, something inside me twisted, sharp and wrong, like a blade turned inward. The rage that should have burned hot and wild has cooled into something worse, a hunger, a need, a compulsion.

I should let her go.

But I can’t.

Not when I feel her. Not when she is still inside me.

Her presence thrums in my blood, woven through the magic that binds us. It tugs at me, relentless, a chain I never asked for and cannot sever. She is too far, and yet I sense her—her heartbeat thudding unevenly, her breath hitching, her body weakening as she stumbles through the wilderness.

She’s running on fear and desperation, but it won’t be enough.

She cannot outrun me.

I move with purpose, each step cutting through the dense undergrowth, branches snapping beneath my weight. My senses narrow, locked onto the pulse of her presence in the distance. The forest bends to my will, yielding as I press forward, unrelenting.

She’s slowing.

She’s weakening.

The bond between us makes it impossible to ignore.

My jaw tightens, fury spiking through me at the reality of it. She should not have this power over me. And yet, every nerve in my body is on fire, my mind snarling against the way it craves her. The longer I go without seeing her, the more I want her.

The more I need to claim what is mine.

I track her through the smell of her blood, faint but unmistakable, a whisper against the night air. The wounds she carries are slowing her down, and though I should take satisfaction in it, I don’t. I only feel restless, agitated. My muscles coil tight, my wings twitching with the instinct to close the distance.

She is close.

I slip through the trees, their canopies a hollow shelter against the moonlit sky. The land shifts, slopes downward, the smell of water and stone thick in the air.

I see her.

She stands at the edge of the cliff, the wind tearing at her hair, her dress clinging to the slender shape of her frame. She is still, the tension in her shoulders unreadable.

My breath halts in my chest, though I don’t understand why.

She is waiting.

She must sense me.

As if hearing the unspoken demand in my mind, she turns.

The instant her eyes meet mine, something sharpens, fractures, a moment stretched unbearably thin.

She is crying.

The sight of it knocks the air from my lungs, but the emotion that follows is nothing but raw, blinding rage.

Why is she crying?

She ran. She did this. She betrayed me.

Yet, when she looks at me, it is not with fear.

It is with relief.

A soft, broken sort of peace settles across her face, and I feel it like a wound. Like a betrayal.

She does not get to look at me like that.

She does not deserve peace.

"Don’t."

The word rips from my throat, the command instinctive, absolute.

But she smiles. A faint, wistful thing.

She steps backward.

Lets herself fall.

The world collapses in on itself, and something inside me changes, vicious and unforgiving.

"No!"

I lunge forward, wings flaring open, body plummeting after her before thought can even form. The wind howls around me, the cold biting against my skin as I tear through the night, chasing her into the void.

She does not get to leave me.

I will catch her.

I have to.

Because if I don’t and I lose her?—

I will burn the world to the ground.