Page 39 of The Onyx Covenant

I laugh softly. “No, you don’t. You wish you did. It would be easier, wouldn’t it? But hate doesn’t make your body react like this.” I run a hand lightly up her spine, feeling her shiver. “Hate doesn’t dilate your pupils or quicken your breath.”

“You can’t see my eyes,” she points out, a hint of her usual sharpness returning.

“I don’t need to see to know,” I murmur. “I remember every detail of you, Lyra. Every. Single. One.”

She pushes against my chest with one flat palm, and I release her, though our bound hands remain locked together.

“For someone who wants to win this competition, you’re not taking it very seriously.”

“It’s just training,” I say, grinning, though she can’t see it. “We have time for more.”

“More what?”

“Truths,” I suggest, my voice dropping. “More confessions. More of whatever this is between us that refuses to die.”

“You’re delusional,” she murmurs.

“Am I? Then why can I still sense your desire from here? Why can I?—”

“There’s something blocking the path,” she interrupts, clearly desperate to change the subject. “Feels like fallen trees. Two of them crossed over each other.”

I reach out, my fingers finding rough bark—massive and immovable. “Too high to climb over while blindfolded and bound.”

“We need to find another way around,” she says.

“Wait,” I say, inhaling deeply. The scent hits me like a memory, damp, earthy, ancient. “Wintermoss.” I recognize what Melian described. “That mossy ground she mentioned—our destination.”

“I smell it, too,” Lyra breathes, her voice dropping to something almost intimate. I hear her inhaling deeply, sniffing the air. “To the right. It’s stronger there.”

I run my hand along the fallen trunk, fingers catching on rough bark. “We follow it, then, as it’s fallen in that direction.”

With each step, the wintermoss scent grows more potent, pulling us closer. Then?—

The ground vanishes beneath my foot.

My stomach lurches as I pitch forward into nothingness. “Fuck, it’s a cliff!” tears from my throat.

In an instant, Lyra snatches the back of my shirt with surprising strength. She yanks me backward, hard. I stumble, losing balance in the opposite direction. We both tumble to the ground, my back hitting the earth with Lyra half sprawled across me, both of us breathing hard.

“That,” she gasps, “was too close.”

My heart hammers against my ribs, adrenaline coursing through me.

“Well,” I manage once I catch my breath. “I think we found an edge. Guessing the moss is down there. They do tend to grow in valleys, so it makes sense.”

We sit there for a pause. Her hand rests on my chest, probably unintentionally, but I cover it with mine before she can pull away.

“I knew you still cared about me,” I state, unable to resist.

“I’m not a monster, Theron,” she says with an exasperated sigh. “I don’t want you dead.”

I chuckle at how badly she lies, her pulse quickening beneath my fingers. “Just maimed, then? Or merely suffering?”

“Don’t tempt me,” she warns.

She gets up abruptly, the rope tugging on my wrist. “Let’s move.” She nudges me with her foot. “We’ve got a tree to find.”

I rise to my feet, staying close to her. “What’s your plan?”

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