Page 107 of Beneath the Desert Bloom
Nora didn’t wait.
She moved to Asher’s side, ducking under one of the creature’s flailing limbs, slicing deep with the obsidian blade into the joint at its shoulder. The blade sank in with a sickening crunch. The creature howled, something inside Nora’s ribs reverberating with the force.
It turned toward her.
Eyes like mirrors.
It showed her herself. Collapsing. Alone. Unmarked. Forgotten.
But the vision faltered.
Because Asher stepped in front of her again.
“No,” he growled, voice thick and jagged. “She is seen. She is chosen.”
And the storm cracked. The vines recoiled. The creature shrieked and melted into the earth, leaving only a charred patch behind.
The Watcher split with a sound like mountains screaming.
Nora grabbed Asher’s wrist. Their blood mingled—her red, his gold—and something in the ground answered with a shudder.
Not submission. Not defeat.
Recognition.
The Hollow no longer demanded more.
Not because they’d fought hardest.
But because they had refused to break apart.
The ring burned low. The vines withered. The air stilled.
And for the first time in centuries, the Hollow exhaled.
Nora collapsed to her knees.
Asher followed.
The wind was gone.
The trial was over.
And the desert waited.
CHAPTER 22
THE HOLLOW WAS quiet, like the land was catching its breath.
Ash drifted sideways in slow spirals, settling across the ground in a fine, silver veil. The vines had retreated. The wind had gone soft. Petals of white, crimson, and violet had begun to fall, one by one, from nowhere, from everywhere, carried on a current of air too gentle to explain. The cracked earth still smoked in places, seams of faint light glowing beneath the stone like old coals not quite ready to cool.
Nora knelt in the center of it all.
Her skin was streaked with dirt, blood, golden sap. Her thighs were raw where the vines had lashed her. Her arms trembled. But her eyes were clear. Wide open. The glow at her throat pulsed in time with her breath.
Asher was beside her, crouched low and still, his massive form bowed under exhaustion and reverence alike. Steam rose faintly from the wounds across his bark-split chest and shoulders. Golden blood shimmered along his ribs, trailing down into the hollows of his hips. His breathing was deep, his gaze fixed on her like she might vanish if he looked away.
His cock was hard.
