Page 44 of The Midnight Death Match

Lys doesn’t talk of fear but of possibility. That, somehow, feels even more dangerous.

Finally, I find my voice. “You speak like this is a gift.”

“It could be. If you choose it.”

“But the cost?—”

“There’s always a cost, Eira.” His voice dips lower, warm and steady. “But imagine carrying it without shame. Without fear of hurting the ones you love because you’ve mastered it first.”

His words dig into the deepest part of me, to the place that feels alone, no matter who stands beside me.

Einar sees my responsibility, and Harek sees my danger.

But Lys sees my potential. He takes another step closer, stands close enough that I can feel heat radiating from him and smell the faint scent of something like rain on scorched stone.

He steps closer, leaving barely a breath between us. “You’ve fought so hard to suppress what you are, but suppression isn’t mastery. Control comes not from denial, but from acceptance.”

My breath hitches. The air between us electrifies.

He watches me carefully, his gaze quickly dropping—not to my sword or the ruins, but to my mouth—then slowly returns to my eyes.

My pulse stumbles. I should step back, but I don’t.

“I can help you rewrite it,” he murmurs. “The bloodlines and the cycle. The hunger inside you doesn’t have to own you.”

I swallow hard. “How?”

A faint, knowing smile curves his lips. “That answer comes later, when you’re ready.”

I hate how badly I want to ask him for more.

He steps back at last, giving me space, but the tension between us lingers, stretched tight as a drawn bowstring ready for release.

“The longer you resist your nature, the more others will shape it for you.” He holds my gaze for one last heartbeat then vanishes soundlessly into the broken streets.

I’m left by myself, heart racing, guilt coiling under my ribs.

Beneath it all, something dangerous whispers that I’m not alone.

Chapter

Seventeen

The sky is growingbright with brilliant orange and yellow hues as I step back into camp. Now the fire’s glowing embers have died, and the sun casts long shadows that stretch between the ruined pillars. My boots barely make a sound as I cross the stone, careful not to disturb dirt and pebbles along the way.

Harek stirs before I even reach my bedroll. His breathing is too shallow for sleep, but he doesn’t open his eyes.

As I slip quietly beneath my blanket, his attention wraps around me like a tether. I pull the blanket up to my chin. My heart still beats faster than it should from the memory of Lys’s voice, his closeness, his certainty. The things he said burrow beneath my skin.

Though I close my eyes, I don’t sleep.

After a few minutes, Harek’s voice breaks the silence. “Where did you go?”

I don’t open my eyes. “I needed air.”

The silence between us says everything our words don’t, and it feels heavier than if we did speak. I try to think of somethingto say to diffuse the tension, but instead I succumb to overdue sleep.

When I wake, it’s already midday. The air inside the ruined courtyard feels thin, stretched tight like a drum. Harek is nowhere in sight.