“Where are you going?”
“To get breakfast.”
While she’s gone, I gather some sticks, figuring whatever she’s going to bring back is going to need to be cooked. When Cassia returns, she’s holding two dead rabbits. I don’t hesitate. Working in the kitchens meant that I skinned and cooked a lot of the animals that the hunters brought back. The first time Charles brought a bunch of dead rabbits back, I fainted. After a couple of months, skinning animals became as mindless a task as peeling potatoes. Cassia helps me prepare them and then moves over to the flames. She stabs her rabbit through a stick and then holds it over the fire, and I do the same.
“How long should we wait?” I ask as the fire spits between us.
“It’s not exactly safe during the day, but there isn’t anywhere for us to stop and rest.”
“We should put the fire out as soon as possible. The hollowers could see the smoke.”
“Does that really matter? We’re going toward them anyway.
Speaking of which, what’s the plan?”
“It’s not very elaborate.”
“Fantastic.”
“I know that I want to talk to Charles, but I’m not sure how. I don’t exactly want to give myself over to him, but I need answers.”
“So you’ll come back to the castle afterward?”
“No,” I say darkly. “I’m not going back there. He’ll keep killing people. It isn’t fair.”
She takes a bite of her rabbit and licks her lips. “You think you’ll just waltz in, talk to him, and then he’ll let you go?”
“He won’t let me go. But I’ve been thinking . . . I know he seems like an awful person to you, but if I can somehow get someone from the village and hold them hostage, there’s a good chance he’ll talk to me without trying to kill me.”
She tears a leg from the rabbit and hums in thought. “You’re sure he won’t just let you kill them?”
“If there’s one thing he loves more than plotting against me, it’s protecting his people and making life better for them.”
“Don’t you think he would’ve protected you, then?”
“Not if killing me benefits his people. Besides, he was always distant with me. I never understood why he was so neglectful, but now it makes sense—he never saw me as one of them.”
“Okay, so what do you want to do?”
“Do you think you can get me to the village? We’ll take the first person we see.”
“And if he doesn’t care? Kill the hostage?”
“No.” I wrap my arms around my body, the chill in the air creeping beneath my skin. “I won’t kill anyone, not again. If something goes wrong, you have to leave me.” She scoffs. “I’m serious, Cassia. I don’t want you caught up in this mess because of me.”
She stays silent and stares at the ground, digging her stick into the dirt. “Elias won’t be happy with me if I come back without you.”
I tense at the mention of him and stare past her head. “Elias doesn’t care about me, he only cares about what it could mean for his people.”
“You’re joking, right?” she says. I turn around and busy myself stamping out the fire, trying to ignore my hurt. Cassia doesn’t move to help.
“I saw you guys at the First Run, you know.” She shifts slightly.
“You were like . . . I don’t know, pressed against one another or something.”
Blood rushes to my cheeks. “It was nothing.”
“You don’t expect me to believe that, do you?” She shakes her head. “He’s different with you.”
“He’s not.”
“He is. I’ve known Elias for a long time, I would know.”
The air is so cold it hurts to breathe. The reminder of Elias’s rejection stabs like a knife in my heart. “And I won’t leave you, Milena. I won’t let them kill you, and if everything goes accordingly and we leave in one piece, I won’t let you go off on your own. There are so many hollower colonies in this area, it isn’t safe for you.”
“What does that have to do with Elias?” I say, irritated.
“It would hurt him, too, if something were to happen to you.
He deserves to be happy after everything he’s been through, and you make him happier,” she says.
I wish I could believe her. She speaks with such conviction and confidence, but I can’t forget what Elias said in the library.
And hearing Cassia talk about him this way, with such passion and devotion, makes me ache for a relationship like theirs. For someone who’d do anything to ensure my happiness like Cassia and Eric would for Elias.
The irritation I feel fizzles out. “You really care about him.”
“Because he’s good, Milena. And he only ever seems to suffer.”
She casts the rabbit bones aside before turning to face me. “But you’re my friend too. And I promise you, I won’t go back to Elias unless you’re with me.”
You’re my friend. Her words echo in my mind, making my eyes water, but I look away.
There’s no point arguing with her. She has made up her mind just as I have made up mine. I can’t go back to the castle, not when Charles kills innocents, not when the villagers hate me, not when Elias doesn’t want me. I don’t belong there and I won’t overstay my welcome. So, as we pack up our things and cover the embers from the fire, I promise myself that if it comes down to it, I’ll make the decision that she won’t.
~
We walk for hours, until the sky turns dark. The last time I made this journey, running on fear and adrenaline, I hadn’t realized how far it was or how long it took. Cassia shifts into her wolf form the second the sun disappears, leaving me alone again with my thoughts. The closer we get to my village the higher my anxiety climbs.
I know my plan is the only way this could potentially go right, but it’s already so weak that with every step we take, the knot of dread in me grows. Because deep down, I fear that I’m not strong enough. Not strong enough to follow through if the first villager is Flo, not strong enough to stand tall in front of Charles. What will they think of me, after what I did to Darius? And the thought of something happening to Cassia is nearly enough to make me turn around and walk straight back to the castle.
A few feet ahead, Cassia pauses. “Stop.”
My heart drops. I hold my breath as I wait for her to tell me what to do, fingers wrapping around the hilt of the dagger in its sheath. Cassia’s eyes turn to me, wide with alarm. I hardly have time to register our surroundings before red flashes across the clearing and Cassia is pinned up against the tree by a black wolf.
“Cassia!” I pull the dagger from my pocket, reaching for her before the wolf on top of her flashes its eyes at me. I freeze in place. Red eyes. Eric. But he’s not alone.
Elias appears in front of me and reaches for my arm. “Leaving without saying good-bye?”
“How did you find us?”
“You make it sound like it’s hard.” I clench my jaw and walk away from him. The sting of his rejection still lingers, but seeing him now, when I’m so close to getting away, only makes me want to leave more. It’s another reminder of why I don’t belong in his village. “What’re you doing?”
“What does it look like?” Leaves crunch beneath my feet as I stomp away from him. “I’m leaving.”
I don’t know where Cassia and Eric are or if they’re even following us, but the forest doesn’t frighten me, not when the one who rules it is right on my tail. “You’re not thinking straight,” he says. “Just come back and rest. We can talk about it all tomorrow.”
“Leave me alone, Elias.”
A burning hand wraps around my arm. “Milena—”
“Don’t touch me.”
“Nella’s death isn’t your fault.”
“That’s not true and you know it.” Despite the cold that digs at my spine, my cheeks burn. “I can’t deal with this anymore, Elias. I can’t be there anymore. I’m nothing but a burden to your people. The villagers hate me, Charles keeps killing innocents
, and you—” I stop myself, the burn from his rejection still hot. “I have to see Charles.”
“He’ll kill you.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I do.” He continues forward until I’m pressed up against the tree behind me. “Trust me.”
“If he doesn’t have me, he’s going to keep killing your people.
Is that what you want?”
Shadows move across his face, the light of the moon illuminating the scar on his jaw. “Nobody’s saying you have to leave.”
“They don’t have to. They’re going to start hating you too. You realize that, right?”
He stays silent. I’m right, and he knows it. His duty is to protect his people, and by keeping me around he’s not fulfilling it.
Pretty soon, his people will begin to resent him for it. “They trust me to make the right decisions.” He takes another step.
We’re nearly touching yet he feels so far away. “They might not see it now, but they will later.”
“See what? That giving me to the hollowers may be more detrimental to you than hiding me from them? Then help me find somewhere to hide, away from your village and the hollowers.
Because I’m not just some puzzle you can’t figure out; I’m a person. I have feelings, I can make my own decisions, and I’m not going to stick around a bunch of people who hate me just because it might benefit you.”
He catches my wrist to keep me from going any farther.
“That’s not how I see you. I know you’re a person. Please come back, Milena, it isn’t safe.”
“You don’t care about me, you just care about what I mean to the hollowers.”
“That’s not true.” He uses his hold on me to pull me closer.
“Milena . . . please.”
“Let me do this on my own,” I say, more a plea than anything else. “I know you have to do what’s best for your people, and I know you want to keep them safe, but they don’t want me there.
The longer I stay, the more people are going to die. We’re getting nowhere with the hollowers and I can’t keep feeling like such a burden to—”
“Milena, wait.”
“Let me talk!” I tug against him. Somewhere in the distance, a howl spirals through the trees, a reminder that the night is ticking away. “Just let me go, I need to—”
“Stay because I want you to.” He steps closer and the forest fades into the background; all I see is him. “I want you to stay.
Not because of the hollowers, and not because I should protect you but because . . .”
“Because what?”
He brushes the inside of my wrist. “Because I care about you.”
All the energy in my body focuses on him, my mind racing. “I care about you, Milena. I feel it too.”
I falter. “You’re only saying that so I’ll stay.”
“I’m not. I wouldn’t do that.”
“You said you didn’t feel—”
“I lied to you.” He reaches out to caress my cheek, his calloused fingers rough against my skin. “It’s not in your head, Milena, I want you too.”
“Why? Why did you lie?”
“There’s a lot I’ve kept from you—who I am, things I’ve done.
Things that might make you hate me. And I want to protect you.
After everything you went through . . .”
“We’ve all done bad things.” Darius trips through my mind, the feeling of his blood as it seeped into my skin. “That doesn’t make you a bad person.”
He smiles sadly as he brushes some hair from my forehead.
“You don’t know how hard it is. To have you so close but so far away—someone I want but can never have.”
The stars are completely insignificant compared to his eyes. I feel feverish as I stare at him, my skin hot as he holds my face. I press my palm to his cheek. “I’m right here.”
“You don’t understand.”
“Then explain it to me.”
“Don’t leave,” he pleads. “I’ll forbid anyone from leaving the village—the hollowers won’t risk coming in, people will be safe.
You don’t have to leave. You belong there.”
“You once told me some of us weren’t meant to belong.”
“I wasn’t talking about you.”
I make a fist in his shirt to pull him closer and I can feel his breath on my lips. Our eyes meet, and it’s like he can see right through me—every thought I’ve ever had, every fear, every desire.
And the vulnerability that accompanies it is strangely comforting.
“Stay,” he breathes. His lips touch mine as I lean my head against the tree. “Promise me you won’t run.”
I don’t know if I’m in my right mind; I don’t know if his confession is clouding my better judgment, all I know is that Elias feels the same way about me that I do him and I never want that feeling to go away. “I promise.”
The world melts away when he kisses me. Nothing matters anymore—his initial rejection, Charles’s plan to kill me, the betrayals of Flo and Darius—it all evaporates and now there’s only Elias and me. And with my face cradled in his hands and his lips pressed against mine, I’ve never felt so at home. My arms tangle around his neck, our bodies molded against one another. His touch sears my skin. Energy pulses between us. I can’t breathe, but this time I don’t care.
“Elias! ”
Suddenly he flies across the clearing, away from me.
I try to catch my breath as I wait for the burning to fizzle out, but it never does. My heart stutters—the air around me burns hot and gold. Flames wind their way up my legs, gasping for oxygen and singeing the bottom of my pants. I scream as a force throws me across the clearing, the breath knocked from my chest when I land on my back, Eric hovering over me. Almost as quickly as he launched me across the clearing, he rolls off me enough so that I can scramble backward.
Smoke fills my nostrils. Cassia stands with her jaw wide open, her hands hanging limp at her sides. Fire spirals into the sky.
The spot where I’d been standing is engulfed in flames, but the tree isn’t what’s burning. Elias stands in the middle of a flame spiraling high into the sky, his clothes ash at his feet but his skin glowing gold, completely unscathed.
“You’re a—but that’s . . .” Cassia is the only one who can speak.
She stumbles toward Elias. “How? ”
Elias stares at me. It isn’t hard to read the horror in his eyes.
Dots connect in my mind as the blazing fire separates us: Elias doesn’t shift, he’s more powerful than other shifters, he’s private and filled with secrets. Elias is a wisper.
Cassia reaches toward his shoulder and she leaps back with a hiss of pain.
“Don’t touch me.” He closes his eyes and puts his hands in front of him. “You can’t touch me right now.”
Eric marches toward Cassia and pulls her back. She’s so caught off guard she stumbles and falls over. “You need to leave, Elias,”
Eric says. “Now.”
Elias’s eyes land on me. “Milena . . .”
“I can deal with it.” Eric steps in front of him so that I can’t see him anymore. “Go.”
Elias doesn’t need to be told a third time; he flees from the clearing. I rub at my ankles where the fire licked my skin. Eric takes his jacket off and throws it over the flames still lingering in the clearing.
“You knew?” Cassia asks.
He ignores her, making sure to stamp out the remainder of the flames. “We need to go back to the castle.”
“You think I’m going to ignore what just happened?” she scoffs. “Elias is . . . he’s a wisper. They’re supposed to be extinct.”
“If you care about Elias, you will.” Eric marches over to me and pulls me to my feet. “Are you hurt? Did the fire burn you?”
My throat is dry. I stare at him dumbly. “Milena.”
“I’m okay. He just . . . Elias . . .”
“Drop it.” The forest around us is still
, a coldness seeping into the air with the departure of the flames. But my blood still burns beneath my skin.
“Elias is a wisper. He nearly lit me on fire.”
“Come on,” Eric says, “we’re going back to the castle.”
His words snap me out of my trance, and I retreat into the darkness, remembering how I got into this situation in the first place. I was supposed to be leaving. With Elias gone, I have more clarity. His presence was intoxicating—he clouded my judgment. “Wait.”
Eric glares. “Don’t make this difficult.”
“This doesn’t change anything.” The conviction in my words isn’t there, my desire to leave as weak as my body. “The hollowers are still going to kill your people. If I come back, I want it to be on my own terms.”
He raises an eyebrow. “And they are?”
“You have to help me come up with a plan to get Charles alone so I can talk to him. And if the hollowers attack before then and somebody gets hurt, you have to let me leave.” I look at Cassia but she’s still pacing the clearing, her mind somewhere far away.
“Do we have a deal?”
“Fine. But you’re going to have to get on my back.”
“Are you joking?”
“Does it look like I’m joking?” He scowls. “I don’t want it to happen any more than you do, but if I let you walk, we won’t get back until tomorrow.” I bite my words as he disappears behind a tree, tugging Cassia with him.
Elias wants me just as much as I want him. Elias is a wisper.
Elias almost lit me on fire. Despite what I told Eric, this changes everything. Nobody knows about him, and it has to stay that way. If Charles found out, if he discovered that the man offering me refuge is the one who could grant him immortality, there’s no telling what he might do. I shudder, the forest whispering threats in my ears. The skin at my ankles stings from the fire.
Eric and Cassia wander back to me, both wolves. I swallow nervously as Eric steps toward me, shifting from foot to foot as he pulls his lips back and snarls in annoyance. I awkwardly climb onto his back, burying my hands in his rough fur before taking a deep breath. “Here goes nothing.”
He shoots off through the forest before I can even throw my leg over the other side. I tighten my grip and bury my face in his fur as we head back to the very place I just ran from.
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