Page 29 of Bane of the Wild Hunt

“If he survived Rian, and if he had supplies to remake such a ward, then we will not land,” Sage insisted, and I tilted my head curiously. He noticed my look and sighed. “There was something of great importance to my people that had to be left at the standing stones,” he explained.

“What are the standing stones?”

“A node,” Sage clarified, and my eyes popped open.

“There was anodein the village?” I gaped in surprise. “Isthatwhere you gave blood?”

“It was,” Sage answered with a solemn nod.

Nodes were a rare phenomenon where the ley lines of the Tithriall came near enough to the surface that they were visible to our eyes. I had only ever experienced one other location, a cave in Sumarra, where the purple veins of the Tithriall flowedthrough the walls and ceiling and made the watery cave glow. I still dreamed of the place.

“And what did you leave behind?” I wanted to know.

This was clearly a more sensitive subject, I could tell by the way Ciaran averted his eyes from me.

“Our people have only one written form of language. Our ancestry,” Sage advised, and I recalled the reddish tattoos on his chest and arms that were similar to the ones displayed on his mother’s and sister’s faces. “We attempt to keep record of our familial bloodlines on tablets that lean against the standing stones.”

“It would be nearly a thousand years of lineage lost,” Ciaran added, his voice anguished even as his lip curled resentfully at the thought.

I supposed that was worth the risk. I did not find much value in such records, but I could understand how people who genuinely loved their family might.

The men continued to discuss the logistics for the next day while my eyes grew heavy again. Tucked against Sage and his warmth, it was not long before I was falling asleep again, and I did not wake until he shifted to lay me down beside the fire. I think he meant to leave me there, but I immediately turned toward him in my sleepy stupor. One leg slipped over his thigh and between his knees to entwine with his, and I pressed my face into his chest.

My last coherent thought was a sense of relief when I felt his tension dissipating as he decided to stay with me, reclining instead, and wrapping me up in his arms.

Chapter nine

YOU FELL HARD, BROTHER

Sage

Idid not want to move. Summer was completely wrapped around me, sleeping more soundly than she had since I’d carried her through the portal, but having her so close was soothing me too. There was a lingering buzz in my blood, a knot in my stomach, the urgency of fear still echoing in my bones from the moment I thought she’d been killed. And it reminded me uncomfortably of the near-feral rage that had gripped me after Ciaran attacked her.

So I laid with her. Once my fire magic created a little cocoon of heat around us, she sleepily peeled out of her outer tunic, leaving her in a short-sleeved undershirt that exposed her arms. I could not help touching her, although I did try to make it as noninvasive as I could. I traced the faint, whitish stripes on her tanned arm that was draped over my waist and did the same on the one between our chests with her hand clenching my bicep under her head. Her skin was as smooth and silky as new petals, far softer than anyone I had ever touched before. And I quickly learned every natural contour and scar on both of her limbs. I watched the rising sun set fire to the vibrant redof her hair; watched the shadow of her lashes stretching across her cheek; watched her lips part around every deep inhale and the steady pulse of her heartbeat that was visible in her neck. I was mesmerized by the way her furred ears laid so peacefully still when they usually rotated on constant alert. And the utter serenity of her expression that betrayed how safe she felt sleeping next to me.

I devoured her, this creature for whom I had sacrificed the trust of my brother riders without hesitation. The fear for her life had left me starving for her every breath and every flutter of her heart that meant she was still alive. The frantic obsession of it was making me feel unhinged, and yet I couldn’t stop, couldn’t help but touch her, and couldn’t look away. I greedily consumed all of her like a drug that had already laid waste to me somehow.

It had been almost an hour since my mother came to tell me that my sister had finally given birth to a healthy baby boy. They were expecting me, but I simply couldn’t seem to pull myself away from the female sleeping so deeply in my arms.

“She will not vanish if you look away,” Ciaran berated me suddenly, and I winced in embarrassment that he had observed my deranged stare. “You fellhard, brother.”

“It is not that simple,” I objected as I began to finally extract myself from Summer.

“No? Perhaps you could explain it to me then because, from where I’ve been sitting, it certainly looks that way,” Ciaran informed me drolly.

“The bond makes me… When she is threatened…”

Ciaran raised his brows, waiting for a full sentence, but I was not sure how to put it into words when I really didn’t understand it myself. The feeling like there was something potentially monstrous inside of me that might tear down the godsdamned world if she was hurt. It was not natural. There wasno wayit was natural. But I could hardly deny it, didn’t evenwantto denyit anymore, so I would honour it instead. Honour her and this connection. To whatever end, I would protect myanam.

“I cannot make you understand it,” I said instead of trying to put something so impossible into words.

I slid free of the dryad, doing my best to ignore her soft moan of objection to my departure. That little sound.Gods. I did my best to ignore the tug it ignited in my gut that tempted me to crawl back to the bed, and I tucked her in again instead. Then I invited Pyrope to nestle in closer and keep the dryad warm in my absence.

“Sage—” Ciaran began once I had stood.

“I know you do not trust her. Iknow,” I reminded him before he could begin to lecture me again.

You’ve known her less than a fortnight,he persisted stubbornly, getting up to follow me away from the fire and using our bond to communicate so no one could hear.

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