Page 16 of Veiled By Smoke (The Nature Hunters Academy #5)
Aston was the first to speak, his voice measured but sharp. “So, we’re just supposed to believe you’re a different man now? That centuries of ruling hell are suddenly erased because Mother Gaia had a heart-to-heart with you?”
Gabby crossed her arms, face hard. “Yeah, no offense, oh mighty former hell king, but forgiveness doesn’t rain down just because you say you’re sorry. I want proof. Not words.”
Liam nodded, his usual humor absent. “You sat on a throne made of broken souls, Osiris. Now you want us to trust you with ours?”
Elias spoke quietly, but his words had weight. “A man can change, but trust is earned. Can you even remember what it’s like to care about anyone but yourself?”
Osiris held their glares, jaw tight, eyes shadowed with regret and something Kimba recognized as fear. Not of them, but of himself.
Kimba felt the pain of the bond, her own and Rory’s, now humming with protectiveness. But she also felt something else running beneath Osiris’s words: a brittle, desperate hope. He was raw, exposed in a way she’d never seen, and it was as terrifying as it was real.
Rory, ever the perceptive one, picked up on Kimba’s inner storm.
She stepped forward, putting a hand on Aston’s arm.
“Let’s call it a night,” she said, her voice steady but gentle.
“We’re all running on fumes, and trust doesn't come without action. It will take time.” Her eyes flicked to Kimba, then to Osiris.
“We can hope Ra and Shelly get back tomorrow. Maybe we’ll see things more clearly after some sleep. ”
Gabby looked like she wanted to argue, but Liam nudged her, and she huffed out a sigh. Tara and Elias shared a look, then moved to follow the others toward the caves. Aston lingered, but Rory tugged him away with a look that brokered no argument.
Within minutes, the clearing emptied, leaving only Kimba, Osiris, and the low, golden hush of twilight.
Kimba’s heart thundered, her instincts warring with her longing, her fear with her need. She didn’t want to need him. She didn’t want to feel so exposed. But she was tired of fighting alone.
She turned to face him fully now, arms loose at her sides, chin lifted in challenge and pain. “They’re right, you know. Words aren’t enough. You have to show me, show all of us something real.”
His eyes searched hers, haunted and hungry, and for a moment, the world shrank to just the two of them, two broken halves, orbiting the possibility of being whole.
And then, as if on some unspoken cue, the old rhythm between them flickered uneasily, vulnerable, but alive.
O siris stood rooted as the others melted away, the world narrowing to Kimba and the silence that pressed between them.
He had faced armies, chained Lucifer, ruled hell itself with a fist of iron and a heart of stone.
But this . . . this was harder. This was honest. This was a battlefield he couldn’t command with fear or fire.
He swallowed, the echo of the others’ accusations ringing in his memory. He wanted to bristle, to defend himself, to hurl back all the pain and anger he’d swallowed for centuries. But it wouldn’t matter. Kimba would see right through him. She always had.
He dragged a hand through his hair, voice raw. “I don’t know how to fix this,” he admitted. “I don’t know how to be someone you can trust. I’ve spent so long being . . . less. Being cruel, being selfish, being numb. And now all I feel is everything I lost, everything I ruined.”
He looked at her, willing her to see the truth, even if it was ugly. “You want me to show you something real? Here it is: I don’t know if I can be what you need. I don’t know if I can love you the way you deserve. I don’t know if I remember how.”
Kimba’s breath caught, her eyes shining, not with tears, but with that fierce, indomitable light that had always drawn him, even in the darkness. “Do you want to?”
He flinched, the question sharper than a blade. Did he want to? Did he dare? The part of him that was still the king resisted. Love was weakness, vulnerability, a risk. But the part that was soul-bonded to her, that remembered what it was to be whole, ached for it with every fractured piece.
He stepped closer, close enough to see the gold flecks in her irises, close enough that the heat of her anger and longing rolled off her in waves. “I want to try,” he whispered. “I want to remember. I want to be better, if not for me, then for you. For all of them.”
Kimba’s lips trembled, and for the first time in centuries, he saw her uncertainty, her fear that he’d break her again. It hurt, that knowledge.
It also felt like a promise.
She reached for him, but stopped herself, hands curling into fists. “I don’t need you to be perfect, Osiris. I need you to try. I need you to fight for us the way I fought for you, even when you didn’t know it.”
He closed the last distance between them, his hand trembling as he reached for hers. “Guide me,” he said, voice shaking. “Please. I don’t trust myself yet. But I trust you.”
The bond between them flared, a pulse of heat and pain and hope, and for a moment it felt like the world held its breath.
Kimba’s fingers twined with his, anchoring him. “We do this together. No more half-measures. No more running from what we are.”
He bowed his head, forehead pressed to hers, letting the bond knit them together, raw and real. “I’m sorry,” he whispered, and for the first time, he meant it, not just for what he’d done, but for what he’d become.
She squeezed his hand, fierce and gentle all at once. “So am I. But we’re still here. That has to mean something.”
And in the hush that followed, they stood, two souls, battered and bruised, but unbroken. The first step was the hardest, but it was a step. And for now, that was enough.