Page 3 of The Most Wanted Witch

I turned toward the sound of steps, knowing already they’d be Hawk’s. I’d witnessed him move without a whisper, but it seemed sometimes when he walked the streets at night, he liked to dare someone to come for him.

The fifth wind carried his scent of spice, forest, and magic as he neared. His dark hair ruffled slightly in the air as his steely eyes met mine. I turned, glad I could blame the wind, not that I’d gotten caught staring, for the burn in my cheeks. Sometimes it seemed my heart would thud faster before his presence even hit my consciousness.

Hawk always seemed to catch up to me while I was in this spot. That wasn’t why I’d stopped. It had just become a habit.

He stopped beside me, staring into the alley as well.

“Amusing yourself with some grouslies tonight?” he asked.

I didn’t ask how he knew what had been in the alley. Maybe he’d seen or heard them somehow from a distance that should’ve made that impossible. Maybe his magic had picked up on theirs. Either way, I wouldn’t ask. He had his secrets, I had mine, and right now I liked them all tucked away neatly. I wouldn’t try to pry open his Pandora’s box as long as he didn’t try to force mine open, especially since mine might have more monsters lurking inside.

After all, what was wrong with me that one of the things people feared the most ran when I got near? I couldn’t even egg on an attack, as others ran screaming from them. They’d gotten a taste of me and didn’t want another. What did that say?

Hawk turned slightly, his arm brushing mine as he moved closer. His heat seeped my way, adding another shot of adrenaline to my blood.

“Why do you always stop here, in the middle of the square—every…single…night? Don’t you think you got your point across the first few times?” Hawk asked, as if he didn’t have the same motives.

I let my eyes move past Raydam’s, and now Jarro’s house, to down the way, where the wish factory was, and across the street to its barracks, and then to all the other shops and buildings.

The first time I’d stopped here on my walk, it had been to take in the scene, really absorb what my situation had become, what was at stake and who the threats were. A place of orientation at first. Then it had become something else entirely.

After months of the same routine, all of Xest knew I’d be here at some point in the night, including Dread. This had become my guns drawn at noon. My place of duels. My open invitation to anyone and anything that wanted me enough to take me on. It was the moment I reminded myself that if they did, I’d handle it one way or another. This was the time and place that told the world I could handle anything they threw at me.

“I keep thinking maybe one of these times…”

Knowing enough time had passed to have made my point clear, having checked off one more night of delivering the message, I continued on my route.

Hawk fell into step beside me.

“You don’t have to walk with me.” I’d lost count of how many times I’d said that to him in the past several months. I might’ve felt compelled to do my tour of duty, but I was okay doing it alone. I resented his presence as much as I sometimes craved it. The more I craved it, the more I resented it. Seemed I was bound to be unhappy with either scenario, and I didn’t think even a good shrink would be able to fix this one.

“I was heading this way.”

It was impossible to recall how many times he’d replied that as well, but it was the same count.

“Did you go by the east side tonight? I haven’t gotten over there in a bit,” I said, knowing he’d done a sweep of the other side of Xest before he joined me, as he always did.

“Slight increase of its presence in certain pockets, but not enough for most to notice.”

He would, though. Hawk could clear a sidewalk like no one else I’d ever seen, but Dread did something to him that rattled me. I’d never forget seeing him weak the way he’d been in the dome, right before I’d shattered us out of it.

I’d spent months avoiding a question that needed an answer. I could stare down a dragon, but damned if this one thing didn’t make me feel weak in the knees.

Ithadto be asked.

“How much more do you think you can handle before it’s a problem for you?” I asked, feeling good about getting the question out in spite of the pure panic over the possible answer. Could Hawk die in Xest if it got too bad? Would he be willing to go to Rest, the way Rabbit did? What if he wouldn’t?

I kept waiting for an answer that wasn’t coming until I forced myself to look at him, afraid of the bad news he didn’t want to deliver.

I stopped walking, and for the first time in months of my tour, I concentrated all my attention on him. This was the exact reason I was better off alone. He was a distraction. And he might end up a dead distraction. If I couldn’t handle even the thought of him dying when he was healthy, how would I handle the reality?

Why was he smiling?

“I might’ve exaggerated the effect it had on me.”

“Exaggerated?” And I might’ve been ready to kill him. “You’re kidding, right?”

“I did what the moment called for. I didn’t say I was going to die at any second, but that I wasn’t going to make it out, which is true. We didn’t have water or food. We both would have eventually died in there.”

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