Page 10

Eight

T he storm wailed and crashed, icy water drilling against Wick’s aching wings.

“Well,” said Briar over the roaring rain. “At least, we have some shelter.”

Wick nodded in agreement. His chin brushed the top of her head, an unavoidable circumstance of closing his wings around them both.

They had found a cave in the depths of the forest. But it was shallow, offering little shelter from the howling wind and rain. Wick had pulled her into his lap and closed his wings around her. Then he had ducked down into the haven he had made, shielding them from the elements.

Shielding her , anyhow. His face and most of his inner body were safe. But his back and his outer wings were still pelted with rain, cold and stinging as it rushed into the cave.

Briar peered up at him worriedly. Based on her squint, she could barely see him in the dim light.

“You really don’t have to do this,” she said.

“Mortals are fragile,” he replied. “It takes more than a storm to harm a Skullstalker.”

Briar rolled her eyes. “ Fragile . You know how many storms I’ve been in?”

“You are shivering,” he pointed out.

Briar tensed, as if she could beat her body’s reactions with sheer stubbornness. The cold won, another shiver running through her small frame.

He rubbed her arms cautiously, as he had seen her do when the cold wind started. According to Briar, they were maybe three days of flying away from her witch’s cottage.

I’m guessing, she had said through chattering teeth. Never flown before you. Don’t quite know how much time it takes to get anywhere on wings.

Briar eyed his hands on her arms so closely he wondered if he had forgotten to retract his claws.

Then she smiled, small and warped, like she was trying to hold it back.

“Thanks, sweet thing,” she said. “But you’re almost as cold as the rain.”

Wick let go of her arms and leaned back as much as he could. But she was in his lap, and there was only so far he could go before he started breaking the sealed cocoon of his wings, and he didn’t want to let any rain in.

“How quickly do mortals die from cold?” he asked.

“I’m not going to wither away in your arms, Wick.” Briar paused, tilting her head consideringly. “Actually, let me try something.”

She knelt up in his lap and looked deep into his eyes.

Wick’s wings spasmed. His whole body had been doing that more since Briar arrived—tail twitching, wings flinching, body reacting for reasons he could not control.

His brother Slate liked to tease him for his body giving away his emotions.

Apparently, Wick was having more emotions than ever because he constantly found himself moving in ways he didn’t even notice until it was over.

Briar leaned up even further. Her eyes were just as stunningly blue as the first night they met. The kind of blue that made him want to dive in.

Briar’s lips parted. She tucked in so close he could feel her chest move with her breath. He waited for her to smile, as she often did when she caught his eye. But she just knelt in his lap, watching him with an unknowable expression.

Wick wondered if she would kiss him. He had seen mortals kiss. It seemed nice. But looking down at her right now, he felt it would be significantly better than nice . He craved it like he craved blood during a frenzy. If she looked at him any longer, he was going to?—

Briar ducked her head, and the smile bloomed, so bright it knocked the breath from his lungs.

“Your eyes are warm,” she explained, looking back up at him.

Wick blinked. Then he remembered the fire in his eyes, a rarity in Skullstalkers that he often forgot about. He did not have a mirror, after all. And his fiery eyes performed no useful function.

Until now, at least.

“You should stay close,” Wick suggested.

“Good idea,” Briar whispered back. She bit her lip. Her gaze fell from him again, and Wick wondered if she feared being so close to him, despite all her time clutched to his chest during their flight.

He sniffed the air. Rain and cold and sweat, but no fear. He couldn’t think of anything else that would make her keep looking away like that.

He tucked away the urge to kiss her. Maybe next time they mated, he would ask for it.

“You must be tired,” Briar said finally. “All this flying.”

“It is nothing.” Wick rolled his shoulders. They were profoundly sore. He had almost been glad to feel that first raindrop that meant they needed to stop and find shelter.

“Still,” Briar said. “I should give you a massage when this storm clears up.”

“Massage,” Wick repeated.

“It’s where I knead your muscles and make them less sore.” Briar held up her hands to form makeshift claws. It was awkward; there was not much room to move around in the safety of his sore wings.

“I’ll show you tomorrow,” she said.

Wick nodded. He looked forward to it. He looked forward to anything that involved her touching him.

Rain battered his wings. A particularly strong gust of wind lashed the cave, and Wick braced himself around Briar.

Briar watched his wing muscles flex with effort.

“My hero,” she said, voice unusually high. She cleared her throat and pulled her smile back into place. “So! Since we’re stuck here until the storm passes, pressed uncomfortably close and now apparently staring at each other for warmth, we should play a game.”

“A game,” Wick repeated. It sounded suspiciously like a mating proposition, which would be difficult with them hiding inside his wings.

“Yes,” Briar said eagerly. “A question game. Each of us asks each other a question, one after another.”

Wick thought about it. “Where do your scars come from?”

Briar’s eyes widened. “Well! Starting out strong.”

Wick waited. Briar cleared her throat, shifting her damp hair out of her eyes. He wanted to follow it with his claw, tuck it behind her ear like she was doing. There was a daintiness to her actions, just as much as there was a roughness. She balanced between the two with a captivating quality.

“Nowhere in particular,” she said. “Just the usual sort of tokens from the life I live.”

It was a pale answer. Wick touched her ribs through her laced shirt, feeling them contract under his touch. He had only seen her naked a handful of times, but he could remember every inch of her. There was a slash scar over her torso.

“Here?” he asked.

Briar’s eyelashes fluttered. Her mouth moved wordlessly, and Wick was helpless to do anything but stare at it. Even with her scars, she was the softest thing he had ever touched.

“A knife fight,” she said breathlessly. “A few years back. I wasn’t even involved; I was just unlucky enough to be standing there.”

Wick’s hand migrated to her back, touching a burn scar through the wet fabric. “And this?”

Briar’s throat worked. She swayed back, and for a moment, Wick feared he had pressed too far. Was it her turn to ask? She hadn’t clarified how the question game worked.

“I—I was paid to smuggle something from a kitchen,” she said, too fast. “A ledger. The cook caught me, pushed me up against a boiling cauldron. My shirt burned onto my back.”

It was not a particularly brutal explanation. But the image would have made Wick grimace if he truly believed it.

“You’re lying,” he said.

Briar blinked rapidly. A shocked grin spread over her face. “Excuse me?”

“Why do you lie?” Wick asked. “I will not tell anyone.”

Briar laughed. One of her nervous ones—still charming, still sweet. But nervous. He was beginning to tell the difference.

“I’m…” Briar paused, looking up at him with that wary look that she rarely let slip through. “I’m not worried about you telling. I just don’t tell people these things.”

“Why?”

“Do you go around spilling your life story to anyone who asks?”

“Nobody has asked,” Wick said honestly.

Briar said nothing. Her chest rose and fell against his own. A small shiver ran through her, and Wick itched to rub her arms again. If only his touch would help as much as his fiery eyes.

“It’s not a terribly interesting story,” she said finally. “I was trying to save a dog.”

“A dog?”

Briar sighed, annoyed. “I was young. Hadn’t learned that you save yourself and you don’t look back.

I woke up to an inn burning down around me, so I leapt out a window.

I was about to run into the streets, find somewhere else to hide—the city guard was on my tail that month—but I heard a dog barking. ”

Her mouth twitched. She still looked annoyed, but now it was a mask she was using to hide whatever was happening underneath.

Wick sniffed the air. Rain, cold… and sadness. Not much. Just enough to smell it under the storm, soft and heavy.

“There was a retired hunting dog,” she continued. “He lived at the inn. Old, deaf thing. Could barely walk, but the owners kept it around anyway.”

“You went back in to save it,” Wick prompted.

Briar laughed bitterly. “I did! Got that scar for my troubles.”

Thunder crashed outside the cave. Wick tightened his wings, pressing harder into Briar’s back, right against the healed burn.

Briar’s lack of speech was enough. But Wick asked anyway.

“Did you save it?”

“No,” Briar replied after a moment. “It was a good lesson. Save yourself, don’t look back.”

The sadness swelled between them, thick in Wick’s nostrils. It was edged with a dozen other emotions Wick couldn’t identify, everything mixing into an incomprehensible blur. But none of them were particularly pleasant.

Then Briar blinked, and her smile was back.

“Anywho,” she said, smiling despite all the emotions curling through the cramped space between them. “After that depressing answer, it’s my turn. You mentioned your brother, Slate. You said he had a wife? I’ve never heard of a lady Skullstalker.”

“There are some,” Wick said. “But she is not a Skullstalker. Ruby was a mortal.”

Briar’s blond brows rose. “ Was ?”

“When they were first courting, yes. Now she is… more.”

“More,” Briar repeated. “Wait, a Skullstalker courted a mortal ? That’s ridiculous.”

Wick fought back a confusing tangle of hurt. He had thought the same thing when Slate had explained the situation. But they were very good together.

“What is she now?” Briar continued.

“A god,” Wick replied. “Or half a god. Mortals die too quickly. Slate would have been bereft if she had died in a mere two hundred years.”

“Two hundred—?” Briar cut off, shaking her head. “Al right . Did he do that to her? Make her a god?”

“Half-god,” he reminded her. “And no, she did it to herself. Later, Slate found a way to tie their lifespans together so she would not die before him.”

“How?”

Wick’s tail flicked underneath him, remembering that strange, misty cave he had walked into with Slate at his side. The scarred Skullstalker that had awaited them, his bone mask chipped with age.

“We met a sorcerer, of a sort. He lives in a far-off land. I have only met him once. He is the one who told me my blood frenzy cannot be cured.”

“Well,” Briar said quietly. “I hope he’s wrong.”

“I hope so too. But I doubt it. He is a Skullstalker. Your witch is just a mortal. She is mortal, yes?”

“Marigold? As mortal as they come.”

Another crash of thunder echoed through the cave. Rain pelted Wick’s wings, leaving him glad that Skullstalkers were less sensitive to the elements.

Briar shivered.

Wick drew her closer. “Tell me about her.”

Briar looked up at him, his fire reflecting in her eyes. “Follow the game rules, Wick. It has to be a question.”

“What is she like?”

Briar smiled, small and real. “Marigold is… my friend. My only true friend, I guess. We met as children, back when we were still at the orphanage. Then we struck out on our own. Petty thievery, mostly. She got caught pickpocketing a powerful sorcerer. When he saw her magical abilities, he took her under his wing. Of course, I got tossed to the side of the road. No magical ability in me.”

“I am sorry,” Wick said.

Briar shrugged. “It turned out alright. She kept in touch, which was more than I expected. We even help each other out sometimes. What about you? How was the mighty Skullstalker’s childhood?”

“I barely remember,” Wick admitted. “I slept. I ate. I explored.”

“Alone?”

Wick nodded. Older Skullstalkers, like Slate, had memories of growing up together in a cave.

Wick had no memories of togetherness. He hadn’t even known he was a Skullstalker until he encountered one during a hunt.

He had examined the Skullstalker’s corpse after the blood frenzy ended and found the body to be closer to his own than any other creature he had met.

Slate had found him not long after. Wick had wandered into his realm entirely by accident, and Slate had guided him out, suspicious all the while.

I am used to my younger siblings lunging for my throat the first chance they get , he had said.

I will try not to lunge, Wick had replied. It had amused Slate enough that he explained more about their species.

“We live isolated lives,” Wick said, then hesitated. “I did try to make friends.”

Briar winced. “How did that go?”

“How you would imagine.” Wick fell silent, remembering so many creatures fleeing from him. Watching them vanish into the distance became preferable to the alternative.

“I think I told them to hurt me,” Wick continued. “But so far, no one has managed it.”

Briar looked at his body, which was covered in various scars. There were even some in his skull mask, the most prominent one chipping away the bone above his mouth.

“I am glad you have that necklace,” he said.

It was not the first time he had told her, but it had a different effect. Briar looked at him like he had said something very serious. His fiery eyes reflected in hers, and the air hung heavily with anticipation.

Then Briar looked away, laughing breathlessly. “Well, I am glad we fucked before the storm caught us. It would be pretty impossible to do the deed in time like this.”

Wind howled around the cave. Wick tightened his wings around Briar until he could feel every lift and fall of her breath, her face so close to his that her nose brushed his chin.

He would like it, he realized. Mating like this. Holding her close as she rocked against his lap. His wings tucking her close and shutting out the rest of the world.

Briar shivered.

Wick leaned in closer, trying to force the fire in his eyes to swell. “Are you still cold?”

Briar swallowed. Despite the warmth they offered, she seemed to have a difficult time meeting his eyes.

“I’m getting warmer,” she said softly.