Page 75 of Wicked Court

I want Axe to pull me against him again, to shield me from a perilous fall—and yet it’s him I should want protection from.

“I swear I’m not normally this clumsy,” I say with embarrassment. “Though, maybe it’s because I’m not usually on makeshift paths of exposed roots and dead branches and … is that a dead bunny?”

Axe doesn’t stare in the direction of a sad, fluffy lump, instead barreling me forward by the arm, his heat seeping into my sad excuse for arm muscles as he drags me along.

“Your hands,” I say suddenly, hesitant but curious, “they’re always so warm, even out here in the cold.”

“Body’s way of coping,” he says tersely.

It’s obvious he’s done with talking, but I’m not about to relent, not when I’m so bewildered and confused by pretty much everything lately.

I ask, my breath fogging up in the frigid air, “Does the Court always put you in places like this? Forests in the dead of night?”

Axe is silent for a moment, but I’ve learned enough about him to discern that he’s not ignoring me. He’s weighing his words, choosing them carefully.

“Life isn’t too kind when you’re branded a freak,” he mutters eventually, his face hidden in the darkness.

One warm hand still clutches my arm, the heat from his skin combating the chill penetrating my clothes.

“I find solace here,” Axe adds after some time, his voice barely more than a whisper carried by the wind.

The forest swallows his confession, and it feels oddly intimate, like an admission few people get to hear.

A sudden rustling of leaves startles us both, and Axe’s grip tightens momentarily around my arm before relaxing again.

A fox darts out from a bush nearby, its eyes reflecting the flashlight before it disappears into the undergrowth.

A few minutes later, we’ve reached our destination—a clearing before the stone walls of campus where the moonlight at last filters down through the trees, mixing with street lamps and bathing the campus in a silver luminescence.

I stop dead in my tracks.

At first, I don’t know why. I should race away from him, making my escape, packing up my things in my room and going … where?

To a mother who barricades herself against her daughter? Or to a grandmother who would rather cling to the past than embrace a future with me?

“Look, Elara...” Axe says behind me.

His voice is rough, like when he screamed out my name as I was falling, it hurt. “When I pushed you away earlier. It wasn’t—there are things about me I don’t enjoy remembering—bad things.”

My eyes, hot with concern and something fiercer, meet his. “I have my own darkness, Axe. Maybe not like yours, but...”

“Elara, I—” The words catch in his throat, and he struggles to release them. “My memories, they’re fragmented because of what I’ve been through. As a kid. You were right. It’s not just forgetfulness.”

It’s a confession that brings a metallic taste to my mouth.

“Thank you for trusting me with that part of you,” I whisper, holding his stare. “It helps, considering how … intimately you know me.”

It’s like we both tumble into the flashback at the same time. Me, strapped to a table with him above me, his fingers, his face, so rabid for me, and he contained it all within, refusing to allow it to escape.

But I saw it. I saw it?—

“Fuck, Elara...” he growls, his barriers crumbling.

His hands, shaking, cradle my face and draw me towards him.

Axe’s lips hover mere inches from mine. The faint light from his phone shoved in his pocket captures him; his furrowed brows, his clenched jaw, his high, almost royal cheekbones. I see him not as the quiet lurker he is to everyone else but as the man he hides beneath the enclosed surface.

He lowers his gaze, lips parting slightly. Time seems to hang in the balance, as if waiting for my response.

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