Page 101 of A Hunger Soft and Wild

Something’s wrong.Something’s here.

Something violent and immediate.

And then the door slams open, a gust of cold air bursting through the threshold.

My breath catches. The world narrows.

“Roan…”

She stands in the doorway like a storm in human shape, sword slick with fresh blood, face set in a fury I’ve never seen before. Her dark hair clings to her forehead, disheveled, damp with sweat, and her chest heaves like she ran straight here without stopping.

Oh gods,she came after me.

My knees nearly give out, a rush of something sharp and bright bursting in my chest—relief, disbelief, bone-deep terror.

Roan’s eyes lock on mine, and for a heartbeat, she looks at nothing else. Not the opulent rot of the ruined foyer. Not the enforcers tensing around me. Not my mother’s icy expression curdling into rage.

Just me.

Her voice cuts through the stillness like a blade.

“Mouse,” she says, low and furious, “what the hell were you thinking?”

The nickname lands like a fist to my chest. My vision blurs.

Gods.

I want to run to her, to throw myself into her arms and screamI’m sorryuntil I can’t breathe. But I can’t move. Not with my mother standing inches away, her wrath rolling off her in cold waves.

Roan takes a step inside, slow and measured, but her blade stays raised. Blood drips to the floor, one dark drop after another. She’s hurt—no,someone elseis. She fought her way here.

For me.

Tears well, hot and helpless. She doesn’t know what she’s done, what she’s walked into. Or maybe she does. And it doesn’t matter. Because she came anyway.

Because shelovesme.

A tear slips down my cheek as the silence in the foyer stretches thin, ready to snap.

Roan came for me.

And now, everything is about to break.

Roan

Iseeher—Aria—trappedbetweentwo enforcers, her arms pinned, her eyes wide and glassy with tears, and something inside me snaps.

Rage surges like wildfire, unstoppable. The blood in my veins ignites, a roar rising in my ears that drowns out everything else. Sheleft me. She signed ‘Mouse’ in that goddamn note and walked into hell alone.

But I’ll be damned before I let them touch her again. I’ll burn this whole place down if I have to. I’ll tear them apart piece by piece.

Because she’s mine. And I’m not leaving without her.

My grip tightens on my sword, the hilt slick from the blood already spilled. I raise it slowly, blade still dripping, and aim the point toward the woman on the far side of the ruined foyer. Raven hair, fine clothes, a regal pose that sets every muscle in my body on edge.

Aria’s mother, Lysara.

She stares at me like I’m nothing more than a stray dog tracking mud through her throne room. My lip curls.

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