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Oberon

MY JAW TIGHTENED tight. The dull and simmering ache in it matched the one behind my ribs. I couldn’t stop replaying what I had said to her or stop picking apart the way her expression had changed. How abruptly that fire in her eyes had become hollow.

The sharp edge of our argument kept cutting deeper, over and over, a rusted blade I couldn’t pry loose. I shouldn’t have let my anger get the better of me. I shouldn’t have let my fear show. And that’s what it was. Fear. That she would be hurt again.

But, fuck , she had blushed at that bastard, let him get close enough to touch her again as if he weren’t a threat, and worse, she thought I saw her as damaged. As if she were just a burden that I had been saddled with, to be tolerated. She didn’t know I saw the way she fought, the way she bled, the way she survived.

“Would you sleep with him for that information, too?”

The bitter, foul venom in the words still lingered on my tongue. My fists clenched on instinct, and my blood pulsed hot beneath my skin. The second they had left my mouth, I knew I had crossed a line I couldn’t uncross. And then she was gone, storming out before I could chase the words and kill them myself.

Would she run?

No.

Not after Vaelwick. Not after…

A part of me still twisted with unease. Maybe it hadn’t been me she didn’t trust, but herself.

“Let’s go spar in the woods or something, Sinclaire. You’ve been smoldering for hours.” Garrick’s voice halted my spiral. I blinked, not registering him at first. My gaze drifted to the window, where the trees bent in the wind.

Sparring sounded good. Hitting something sounded better. The floorboards creaked beneath each step. They, too, were tired of carrying my guilt. The words I had flung at her circled in my mind like birds. Saints , I had watched the light die in her eyes before a pained rage replaced it.

Quinn was likely still furious. I hadn’t seen her since she stormed out, shoulders rigid and jaw trembling. But she hadn’t run yet. I doubted she would go anywhere before I had the chance to make it worse.

I cinched my weapon belt tight, the leather biting into my hips in penance, and stepped out into the brittle morning. Garrick waited, whistling an off-tune melody as we left the tavern behind us. His cheer grated against my nerves. Too bright. Too loud. Sunlight through shattered glass.

We crossed the main street, our boots striking the damp stone, as we passed shuttered stalls and broken carts. A lean cat watched us from beneath a crooked wheel, its eyes catching the light in twin embers. A few chickens pecked near the old bakery, feathers ruffling in the breeze that swept in from the shoreline. But even as they moved with caution, something in the air warned them not to linger.

My thoughts still gnawed at me. Every muscle had drawn tight. I needed the fight. Needed the snap of motion, the sting of bone on bone. Needed to knock Garrick on his ass until the storm in my chest bled dry.

I halted when we passed the last row of houses. The world stilled, and my instincts roared to life. The breeze carried a strange, syrupy sweetness beneath the salt. A smell of fruit left to decay in a sealed jar that didn’t belong.

No dogs barked. No gulls wheeled overhead. The fog became thicker than before, crawling low across the ground, claiming it.

My gaze drifted toward the docks.

Mist smothered the piers and pressed with an unnatural weight. It curled between the hulls of fishing boats, slipped beneath abandoned nets, and coiled around wooden beams. It was searching. And the sea listened in silence.

A rat darted across the street, then froze with its tiny chest heaving, before vanishing back into shadow. A crow took flight from a post, wings slicing the mist. A narrow and lean fox stood at the mouth of an alley. Its fur shimmered with dew. Eyes of molten gold fixed on mine. Unmoving and unblinking, it watched me.

The animals knew something was amiss.

Even the air held its breath.

Garrick continued to walk ahead of me, unaware of my unease. “Come on, Broody,” he called, voice sharp in the hush. “It’s been too damn long. I’m itching to get my ass kicked by you.”

Garrick turned and pivoted on his heel, dodging my next strike with an ease that only made my grip on the hilt tighten. Bastard was toying with me, and he knew it.

“Oh, don’t flatter yourself, Sinclaire,” he said, his breath steady, his eyes gleaming with amusement. “I do enjoy the occasional battle of blades, but let’s be honest—right now, you’re about as distracted as a drunk in a brothel.”

A raw growl built in my throat, and I lunged. The crack of our swords clashing echoed through the trees with a burst of sparks. “And you thought talking would help with that?“ I stepped back.

“Hey, it’s working, isn’t it?” he shot back, grinning as he deflected my next strike, angling his sword to throw off my momentum. “At least you’re moving instead of brooding in that damned window like a tragic ghost.”

I clenched my jaw, eyes narrowing.

He wasn’t wrong. I had agreed to this because I needed the release, the break in the noise, and the burn in my lungs. I needed to lose myself in movement, in muscle and instinct, rather than letting that sick, relentless rage take hold in my chest. Since last night, it had been simmering beneath my skin, a storm begging to break. I hadn’t slept. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw the way her expression crumpled when the words left my mouth. The way she glared back.

Guilt had festered into something worse. Into fear. Fury.

With each strike I landed, each block, and each breathless clash, I made another attempt to outrun it. But it didn’t work when the bitter words had been carved behind my teeth, when I still saw the way she walked away.

The clang of metal rang out again as Garrick forced me to pivot, his smirk widening. “You know,” he panted, “for someone who claims not to care, you fight like a possessed man.”

“I don’t care,” I snapped. My blade hissed, missing his shoulder by a hair.

“Right,” he said, ducking. “And I’m a chaste saint.”

Breathing hard, I bit back another retort. The wind stirred the trees, and their bony branches creaked. Somewhere above, a varrock shrieked—a lean, hook-beaked creature with ragged wings and cruel, gleaming eyes—circling like it could smell blood in the air.

I didn’t want to talk. I wanted to forget. But Garrick persisted. The bastard had always been as relentless as a hound on a smell, especially when he sensed weakness, and even more so when it was me who bled it.

He danced back, cocky as ever, rolling his shoulders. It had been just another game to him. “So, what was it then?” His eyes gleamed beneath the canopy, his usual mischief lurking within them. He feinted left.

I didn’t fall for it. I knew his movements too well, read the shift in his hips, the slight pause before he lunged. I caught him mid-motion, steel meeting steel with a harsh screech. My blade locked against his, and I twisted, grinding hard enough to wrench his grip. He grunted, boots skidding against the damp earth, but held his ground. He bared his teeth and pushed back with equal force.

“Did you say something stupid ?” he asked, his voice too casual, strained beneath the pressure.

Pressing harder, I forced him lower. Our blades trembled where they met, vibrating with the tension between us. Not just steel—but emotion. Anger. Regret. The things I hadn’t said. The things I had .

“Drop it,” I growled with venom.

Garrick’s smirk lingered at the corner of his mouth, even as sweat traced along his temple. “Hit a nerve, did I?”

Of course, he tried to bait me. He knew where to dig. And he was infuriatingly right. I shoved him back, snapping the lock with a snarl, and swung again. The brutal clash of metal rang out through the trees. He caught the strike in time, the impact rattling through both our arms in a thunderclap.

“You always overreact with her,” he added. “That’s how I know you’re scared.”

I froze for a breath. His weight slammed into mine with calculated force, twisting our blades apart. I stumbled back a few paces, boots digging into the dirt as I hissed through my teeth. My grip on my sword tightened until my knuckles went white.

Garrick stood tall, his chest rising and falling fast, but his gaze had lost its usual teasing edge. Now it was sharper. Focused. He was trying to peer straight through me.

“See?” he murmured. “You are scared. And I don’t mean of her.”

Forcing my stance steady again, I scowled. “You don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.” But the words tasted bitter. Hollow.

His grin widened. “Oh, but I do, Sinclaire.” He spun his sword in a lazy arc as if he weren’t standing at the edge of danger. “You’re scared of losing her.”

The words hit harder than any blade could have. My chest seized, lungs tightening around the fury that flared hot. I lunged, steel singing through the air with a scream.

Garrick knew what he was doing. That glint in his eyes was no longer smug. It was deliberate. Calculated. Pushing just hard enough to see if I had broken it again. And saints, I was close. Every inch of me vibrated with tension that curled like a beast beneath my skin.

My knuckles went white on the hilt. My breathing deepened, grew too measured. If I didn’t control it, if I didn’t cling to the edge of the discipline that I had lived my whole damn life by, I would break.

I wanted to tell him to shut the fuck up, to shove the words down his throat with the point of my blade. But the words caught behind my teeth. Because he knew, and that infuriated me the most. I rolled my shoulders, trying to shake the tension. “This isn’t about her.”

“Isn’t it?” Garrick countered, shifting his stance, a predator circling wounded prey. He studied me as if I had already lost. “From where I’m standing, it sure as hells looks like it is.” He twirled his sword again and locked his gaze on mine. “I’ve seen you kill for less, Sinclaire. I’ve seen you colder than the grave. And I’ve seen you control your temper better than that.”

My eyes narrowed as I stepped forward, driving my blade against his. Sparks flared between us as steel met steel. He held his ground, eyes never leaving mine.

“I never saw your eyes turn silver like that before,” he said, quieter now. Penetrating deeper. “Much less over a man touching a woman.”

My jaw rolled. He was right. Quinn had awakened my Fae blood, and I detested it. Despised that the moment that bastard laid a hand on her, something primal inside me rose like a tide. That I had moved without calculation, without the indifferent logic that had kept me alive for years. The assassin—the part of me trained to observe and wait—had been set aside.

The Fae in me had claimed her, and that terrified me.

Garrick saw the change in my expression. His smirk curled again, triumphant. “There it is.” I slammed his blade aside, hard enough to send him stumbling. He caught himself, boots dragging through the dirt.

My mask snapped back into place with a glare. “This conversation is over.”

He steadied himself, the grin widening into a smile of pride. “Oh, I bet it is.” The next clash was fast and violent. “The way you reacted at the docks was something,” he continued, tone slick with amusement. “Like you’ve done it a dozen times.”

Our blades collided with a shrill clang and a force that sang up my arms. Garrick circled. His eyes burned bright with intent. “Not to mention your veins glowed, you little Faerie,” he added with a mocking lilt. “And I know for a damned fact that doesn’t happen unless something calls it out.”

My jaw clenched so hard it ached.

Her blood.

On my hands.

The heat of it. The metallic tang. The way it spilled between my fingers, as if it belonged there. The soft gasp of pain when my arms caught her, the tremble in her body.

I lunged harder than I meant to. Garrick blocked. His boots slid back a step in the dirt. His grin widened. He knew he had hit a raw spot.

Bastard.

White-hot, primal fury rose. That same nauseating fear I had felt the moment her body went limp in my arms settled into my bones and whispered, “ You weren’t enough to stop it.”

I huffed, forcing the thoughts loose before they took root too deeply. But they lurked in my subconscious. “Are you finished?” I gritted out, my voice low and scraped raw, my blade pressing harder against his.

Garrick leaned in enough for the following words to land harder. “That depends,” he said, the amusement still unshaken in his voice. “Are you ready to admit I’m right?”

Part of me was tempted to answer. The other side of me yearned to break his jaw. I shoved him off, the clash of our blades tearing apart with a burst of force that sent him stumbling back a few paces. I stepped away, chest heaving, jaw locked tight as I fought to regain the control I never should have lost. The fury in my veins hadn’t cooled—it pulsed beneath my skin, demanding release. Violence.

“There’s nothing to admit,” I muttered, turning away from him before I succumbed to the urge to strike again. My voice was rough, frayed at the edges. I slid my blade back into its sheath with a sharp snap . My fingers curled into fists, hands still itching from everything I repressed: Guilt. Fear. That dark, possessive protectiveness that knotted in my stomach every time I thought of her bleeding.

“Sure, Sinclaire,” Garrick drawled behind me, his voice loose and casual, but there was weight in it. “Keep telling yourself that.” He adjusted his stance behind me, boots shifting in the dirt, the familiar scrape of his blade readying again. Preparing for another round.

I didn’t turn back. If I did, I wouldn’t fight to spar.

I would fight to feel nothing at all.