Page 79 of Tethered In Blood

When I realized she had been staring, my body went rigid, betraying me. It sent a pulse of heat through my gut when I realized she hadn’t justlookedat me; she had raked her eyes over me. Gazed at me. And she blushed from what she saw. She had tried to play it off then, just as she tried to do now.

There was a shift between us, the way the air stretched thin, pulled taut between what we would and wouldn’t say.

The way she avoided my eyes and the way she looked at me when she thought I wasn’t looking told me she pondered about it. About me. About what it meant that I stood so close, smirked at her, with a darkness pulling at the borders of my lips. Because I hadn’t before. And the way she had to force herself to look away, to swallow whatever had surfaced in that moment. It sent a satisfied sensation snaking through my chest.

I moved close enough to watch the flush creep higher. To watch her react. “Are you worried about me, Dilthen Doe?”

She scoffed, rolling her eyes too hastily. It was defensive. Flustered. “Shut up, Sinclaire.”

I huffed a quiet laugh, but I knew her well enough now. If I took too long, she would follow. I just had to burn that thing before she had the chance.

THEFIELDWASquietwithout Quinn. The unnatural silence descended, as though the land had stilled in her absence. I should have focused, listened for the faintest shift of wheat stalks, the near-imperceptible rustle of something moving through the dense, stagnant air, and searched for the smell of rot or any sign that the ground had been disturbed by more than just our hands. But I couldn’t concentrate. My thoughts continued to wind their way back to her, to how her breath caught, the way a blush rose high on her cheeks, crept down her neck, and disappeared beneath the collar of her shirt, how her lips had parted, her pupils dilated, and the sweat had clung to her, dampening the delicate strands of hair at her temples, trailing the curve of her throat. I had been close enough to see it. Close enough to reach out, to touch.

I wanted to.

I wanted to trace the sharp edge of her jaw and press my thumb against her bottom lip to see if it was as soft as it looked. To tilt her chin up and—

Flexing my fingers at my sides, I forced the thought away. Maybe it was the heat. It had gotten to her first, warped her senses, and made her look at me in that way.

Or maybe it had gotten tome.

Because I had smirked and hadn’t even tried to stop it. Ihatedit. I loathed how it had happened so fast and how she made it so easy, as if she had peeled back layers I hadn’t meant to lose. I couldn’t remember the last time I had smiled that way. I had with Garrick, long ago, when the world was simpler. But that was different.

And then the moment had shattered.

Her eyes widened in horror when she realized what was moving beneath her. The instant of stillness before the hand shot up from the dirt, fingers reaching, grasping, and searching for her. The same feeling that had torn through me in Silverfel came rushing back with jagged, splintered edges, embedding itself within my chest.

I clenched my teeth and forced the thought back.

Focus.

I kept moving, each step deliberate as I drew closer to the center of the field. The shovels were still there, discarded where we had left them. The ground remained raw, its edges broken and disturbed from when we had uncovered it.

An unexpected onset of unease settled over me as I wracked my brain, combing through everything Lord Everette had told us, everything the villagers had whispered with fear thick in their voices, and everything Quinn and I had seen firsthand. The things we had fought, the bodies, the sickness, the thin veil of air that made my skin crawl, and the one thing we hadn’t considered: if that thing was moving, it wasn’t tethering those creatures from the Veil to the crops anymore.

The field had been a gatekeeper. It was a tether between whatever unnatural force lingered and the village itself. And without its anchor, what stopped those things from the Veil from spilling further into Vaelwick?

What stopped them from reaching Quinn?

Lord Everette’s warning surfaced unbidden in my mind. The way his face had paled when he said it. His voice had dropped above a whisper as if he risked summoning whatever it was. The villagers had seen something lurking outside their windows. Standing just beyond the glass, watching them.

This was what it wanted. The necromancy hadn’t been just a warning. It wasn’t a mindless display of power. No—this had been deliberate. A lure. A trap to draw me out and separate me from Quinn.

My pulse pounded in my ears, and I took a slow step back, my fingers curling at my sides. I had walked right into it, right into its design. And now, Quinn was back at the mansion, unaware. Vulnerable.

The air was oppressive as unseen hands grabbed at my skin. My breath became sharper. Every instinct screamed that I was being watched, that whatever had crawled free from this grave hadn’t left. It was waiting.

There was a rustle behind me, a whisper in the dead wheat. My focus snapped toward the sound with my muscles coiled. The silence stretched taut. My senses strained against the unnatural stillness, trying to catch what my eyes couldn’t see. Then, the air bent. It was deeper than wind or a shift in temperature. A ripple pressed against my back, warping the space behind me, and pulling at the edges of reality itself.

I twisted. The creature stood tall, gaunt, and smiling. The dead wheat remained still around it as if Elduvaris had been reluctant to acknowledge its presence. I met its hollow gaze without flinching, my fingers steady as they curled around the hilt of my sword.

The voice scraped against my skull. It was hollow and grating, brittle bones dragged across rusted metal. Familiar in the way rot clung to memory. It held the same unnatural resonance as we had faced in Silverfel, but older.

“What do you seek, Fae?”

My jaw tightened. My instincts bristled at the weight of those words. It was a test. A challenge. I held its gaze, feeling the pulse of the ancient being staring back at me through the yawning abyss of its eyes. “Where is the body?” I demanded.

Its grin stretched unnaturally wide, splitting its face in two. The surrounding wheat shuddered in response.

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