Page 29 of Scorched By Fate

I didn’t believe it for a single burning second.

“You’re shaking.” The words came out harder than I intended, sharp enough to strike the tension between us, and her response cut back with a biting force that tried masking the cracks beneath it.

“Adrenaline,” she said, her chin tipping upward, pride lacing every inch of the stubborn line she drew between us. “That’s how it works.”

It might’ve worked—on anyone else. But the brittle flame in her eyes, flickering right alongside every sharp inhale, told me otherwise.

I moved forward again, closing the space with steady steps. She didn’t step back. Not fully. But she stiffened, the knife angling between us, more barrier than threat.

I stopped just short of swinging range. Not that I was braced for a fight—no. I’d die before I raised a claw against her, but there was something about the way she planted herself there, stubborn and almost trembling, that made me tread carefully.

Softer. Not weaker, just quieter.

“You don’t smell like adrenaline.” The observation left my throat rough, my voice barely above a growl, and the way herskin flinched at the sound cut something low through me. “Your fear is soaked into the air. So is the blood.”

Her sarcastic laugh cut sharp across the heat, bitter and jagged. “I hadn’t noticed.”

But her bravado did nothing to mask the tremor trailing through her fingers. The trembling tip of her knife faltered again, though her knuckles stayed white from gripping too tightly.

My gaze swept downward, dragging over her weakening stance, the wobble of her knees where exhaustion rippled through her frame. I searched for blood, for anything hidden in the curve of her arm or the desperate rise of her breath that she might be trying to shield.

Because if she was bleeding unnoticed— If she couldn’t even tell …

“Stop.” Her voice cracked against me, breaking harder than the knife she still held like it meant anything. Her free hand rose suddenly, palm lifted toward me like she could push me back with a single word. “Don’t look at me like I’m about to fall apart.”

Her stubbornness might as well have been a current drawn straight from the molten vein of Volcaryth itself, snapping bright and furious against something more fractured underneath.

I blinked slowly, jaw clenching against the instinct to bare my teeth in a snarl. My next step was sharp, harder than I meant it to be, but precise enough to close the final stretch of space that separated us.

“Let me see,” I said, quieter now but still sharp. The low press of my voice coiled like heat breaking under pressure, and my claws flexed where they hung just within reach of touching her.

“I told you—” she tried, but I silenced her.

“Let mesee.” The growl came unbidden, rough and low, carrying the force of a command she didn’t have room to argue with anymore.

I wanted to say it was instinct. Or desperation. But it was neither.

It was something harsher, sharper, thrumming dangerously low in the pulse of my blood.

Her jaw tightened again, her lips pressing together as if she was fighting to anchor herself against more resistance. Her chest rose briefly, enough for her chin to tilt higher, but her defiance cracked under some unspoken, mutual weight that neither of us knew how to place.

She shifted. A step. Small.

Enough.

I moved closer, closing what little distance still lingered. My claws reached carefully—angling for the curve where her shoulder met the sleeve of her shirt even as my senses flared sharper beneath her scent.

Selene stiffened immediately, her muscles tightening, but she didn’t pull away. My grip steadied gently—not restraint, not fully, but angled enough to guide her. My gaze swept her shoulders, tracing over the flush of her skin, over the streaked minerals and ash scattered across her arm.

No punctures. No claw marks.

No blood. At least none of hers.

The coil in my chest—tight, suffocating—began to ease around the edges. Even as heat simmered dangerously low beneath each rasping breath.

“You’re reckless.” My claws uncurled, releasing the tiny sensation of contact they’d kept where her arm burned beneath them. I didn’t move far. Didn’t withdraw.

My hand remained there a moment longer than it should’ve, hovering just near the edge of where her steady defiance began softening into frayed exhaustion. “Reckless,” I muttered again, quieter this time. Something between relief and accusationwedged itself thick into my throat as every nerve threatened to fray. “And stubborn.I told you to yell for help.”

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