I twist my fingers until they ache. There’s nothing I can do except wait. And hope he remembers again.
And what then? He knows where the pride is . . . where I am. He’s seen me. He’ll come back. If he’s caught again they’ll know he’s different—that shading won’t work on him.
“C’mon.” Cassian takes my arm. “I’ll walk you home.”
I resist only a moment. Of course I should go. The last thing I should do is linger here and give anyone cause to suspect that the trespasser means something to me.
Turning, I let Cassian lead me away. One thought pounds through my head in beat with my thundering heart: He kept his promise. He came for me.
Unable to help myself, I start to look over my shoulder, but Cassian’s voice stops me. “Don’t look back, Jacinda.”
I force my gaze forward. He’s right. The fact that Will remembers and came for me changes nothing. I can’t go with him. I won’t let my heart overrule logic. Nothing has changed. We’re a dangerous combination. Like fire and oil.
Cassian says nothing else until we reach my house. “Where’s your mother?” he asks.
I motion for him to wait as I go check on Mom. She’s asleep with the television on in her room, her features relaxed in a way I never see anymore. I quietly ease past the bed and turn off the TV. Closing her door, I return to where Cassian paces the living room.
His liquid-dark gaze cuts to me. “How did he find—”
“I’m sure it was simple luck. He got too close to the township and patrol picked him up,” I quickly insert, not wanting him to realize that Will might be resistant to shading.
He shoots me an exasperated look. “Jacinda, he’s no innocent hiker.”
“Yeah. I know.” I fold my arms across my chest. “He’s a hunter.” A heavy silence stretches as I stare at him. “So why didn’t you say anything?”
“How do you know I won’t?”
“Will you?”
He sets his jaw at a stubborn angle, like he wants to say yes, but then he blows out a deep breath and briefly looks away, and I can’t tell whether he’s angrier with me or himself.
“So you can hate me? So I can watch them kill him? I would get no satisfaction in that.”
I can only stare, no longer so surprised that Cassian might truly care for me. Me and not simply what I am. He’s not my enemy. I believe he wants to help me. Why else would he bother protecting a boy I shouldn’t even care about?
“You have to let him go, Jacinda.”
I nod, but the motion is painful, makes my temples throb. “I know.”
“But he needs to know that,” he says, his voice heavy with meaning.
I meet his gaze, understanding dawning slowly. “You want me to speak with him?”
“Once he’s a good distance from the pride, you need to confront him and explain to him that it’s over between the two of you. I know he might be confused after being shaded, but you need to get through to him.”
I can’t look at him just then, not with what I suspect—that Will can’t be shaded. Would Cassian be as willing to let him go if he thought that?
Cassian steps closer and turns my chin to look at him. “Tell him to convince his family that this area is dry. That there aren’t any draki here anymore. We’ve moved on. They’ll listen to him.” The implication hangs there unsaid. They’ll listen to him because of the blood. Because he’s connected to us. Cassian lowers his face so close I can feel his breath on my cheek, and the memory of our kiss intrudes. If that isn’t enough to make me recoil, then his next words are. “If I see him here again, I won’t hide the truth anymore—whether you hate me for it or not. I won’t protect him again. Understand?”
I nod, a lump clogging my throat.
“C’mon.” He opens the front door to the misty night.
“Where are we going?” I ask.
“They’ll probably drop him in the usual spot. I want you waiting for him when he comes out.”
Chapter 11
I sip silent breaths from where I hide in a tree, the bark a rough scratch on my bare legs, needles poking me on all sides as I stare down at the spot where intruders who’ve been shaded are always dropped. It’s not far from the public road that carves deep into the mountain, the only official road this high. My heart still thunders in my ears from my mad dash to get here first.
The patrol moves quietly through the woods, but even so, I hear their slight rustling as they approach. Ludo breaks through the trees with Will slung over his shoulder, Remy right behind him. Wincing, I watch as Ludo drops Will unceremoniously to the hard ground. That had to hurt. If Will is faking unconsciousness and is actually awake, as I suspect, he did a good job masking any reaction to such rough treatment.
The two draki stare down at him for a moment. Remy nudges him sharply with his boot.
“C’mon,” Ludo says. “I’m hungry.”
I wait several moments after they leave, scanning the trees, making certain nothing moves and they are well and truly gone. Will lies on the ground very still, dead still, and I can’t wait any longer.
I climb down and rush toward him. Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe he’s not faking. Maybe he can be shaded.
I hover above him, holding out my hands in front of me, unsure where to touch. “Will.” His name escapes in a hush. As if I were afraid to say it aloud. As if giving voice to the name would make his being here untrue—make him vanish in a puff of smoke, into the mists that enclose us. As so much of me has vanished since returning here.
In the gloom, his eyes snap open. I jerk back, startled. He smiles those well-carved lips at me. Lips whose shape and texture are permanently imprinted on my memory.
I gasp, relieved, and say his name again, firmer this time. “Will.”
He stands in one easy move, with none of the lingering effects of someone shaded, confirming that I’m right. His draki blood has left him immune.
He moves toward me, and I meet him halfway—but then I recall myself and what I need to do. I quickly step back before we can come together. Holding up a hand to ward him off, I demand in a whisper, “What are you doing here?”
“Looking for you.” The sound of his voice makes me tremble. The velvet rumble sends shivers along my skin and tells me everything I already know. He hasn’t forgotten me. He still wants me. I swallow down the thick lump in my throat.
It’s the same. The way it’s always been around him. The idea of forgetting him and putting him out of my life is easier when I’m not confronted with him.
“You shouldn’t have come. You risk too much.”
“Jacinda.” He looks at me like I’ve lost my mind. “It’s me.” He seizes my hand, tugs me forward.
And I can’t not have this. Wrong or right, selfish or not. I’ll take this. Steal a moment with him. If only that. I’ll make it last. Make it enough.
He hauls me into his arms and holds me so tightly I wonder if he might not crack a rib. I look up into the shadow of his face and crave to see more of him, more than what the muted moonlight reveals to me.
But I can’t. This will have to be enough.
I press a palm to his cheek, savor the scratch of bristle. My heart swells at the sensation of him, the simple touch of his flesh against my hand. Something I never thought to feel again.
“You remembered me,” I whisper, searching his glowing eyes in the dark. “You remembered that night—”
“When everyone woke up confused, I figured out what happened. I remembered you telling me about Nidia and figured that’s what Tamra became. So I pretended I was just as confused as everyone else.” He laughed once, the sound a rough scrape on the air. “My cousins still don’t know what the hell happened to them. All they can guess is that someone slipped them a roofie.”
“Only you can remember?” Relief slumps my shoulders as Will nods. “Yeah. That night is a complete blank to them.”
To them. I stare at the shape of him in the deep gloom, at the gleam of his eyes as I let it sink in why only Will is so special.
The blood.
“It’s because you’re like us,” I murmur.
“What?” He tenses against me and something vibrates in his voice that tells me he understands my meaning. More than he would like.
I suck in a breath, force it down my too-tight throat. “Well, you’re enough like us apparently. A shader’s talent doesn’t work on other draki. You must have been transfused with enough draki blood to form a resistance to being shaded. That would explain how you’re so connected to us . . . so good at tracking us. You’re like us.”
We say nothing for a long moment, and I wonder if he’s thinking what I am.
How else is he different? How else is he not like humans? How else is he like me? Like a draki?
I shake my head. It’s too much to contemplate. And there’s no way to know. Not right now. I don’t know if it’s something we’ll ever know. But then it doesn’t matter, does it? Because we only have now. For us, there will be no tomorrow. No future.
“Does it disgust you?” he asks. “Do I?”
I know what he’s asking, but the answer isn’t simple. “I know you didn’t make any of it happen, and you’re alive as a result . . . but stolen blood flows through you. Draki were butchered . . . for you.”
“I know.” In the dark, his gleaming eyes don’t even blink. “I can’t deny anything that you’re saying. I didn’t know what my father was doing to me until it was over. You know that, right? You’ve got to believe that.”
“I do.”
His breath falls heavily. “Sometimes, at night, I feel them. In my dreams.”
I squeeze my eyes shut for a brief moment and have to give voice to that gnawing fear inside me. “Is my father one of—”
“No! It’s not possible. Don’t think it for a second. We only started hunting this area a little over a year ago.”
Relief ripples through me. “You could never disgust me, Will. I care about you too much.”
His hand moves along my spine and I shiver, recalling myself, and what I’ve come here to do.
“How’d you find me?” I ask, stalling, telling myself to pull away, to untangle myself from the wondrous feel of his arms around me. To disengage before it becomes too hard.
Too hard? I almost laugh. It’s already too hard.
“This is the third time I’ve been out here looking for you,” he admits.
“By yourself?” I tense and glance into the thick shadows, almost as if I expect a hunter to appear there.
“I’m alone now,” he assures me. “I came last time with my family. I slipped away while they . . .”
“Hunted,” I supply, my voice hard.
I shiver at the thought of hunters in these woods. So near the township. Now they have faces. They’re no longer the hazy bogeymen of nightmares. I can see them. His father. His uncles. His cousins, Xander and Angus. They were here. Recently.
I shake my head, anger rising in me that he dared to come back. He risked so much. And not just himself. He put every life in my pride in jeopardy. “It’s too dangerous for you to be here. You shouldn’t have come. If they knew who you were tonight . . .”
I shake my head. Losing him because I can’t see him again is one thing, but losing him because he’s gone, killed by my brethren . . .
That, I couldn’t handle. It would destroy me.
“I just looked like some guy hiking the mountain.”
“Tamra and Cassian recognized you.”
“And they said nothing.”
I nod. “For me. They kept silent for me. I promised I would get you to persuade your family to stop hunting this area.” I inhale a deep breath. “And I promised I would make sure you never came back here again—”
And what then? He knows where the pride is . . . where I am. He’s seen me. He’ll come back. If he’s caught again they’ll know he’s different—that shading won’t work on him.
“C’mon.” Cassian takes my arm. “I’ll walk you home.”
I resist only a moment. Of course I should go. The last thing I should do is linger here and give anyone cause to suspect that the trespasser means something to me.
Turning, I let Cassian lead me away. One thought pounds through my head in beat with my thundering heart: He kept his promise. He came for me.
Unable to help myself, I start to look over my shoulder, but Cassian’s voice stops me. “Don’t look back, Jacinda.”
I force my gaze forward. He’s right. The fact that Will remembers and came for me changes nothing. I can’t go with him. I won’t let my heart overrule logic. Nothing has changed. We’re a dangerous combination. Like fire and oil.
Cassian says nothing else until we reach my house. “Where’s your mother?” he asks.
I motion for him to wait as I go check on Mom. She’s asleep with the television on in her room, her features relaxed in a way I never see anymore. I quietly ease past the bed and turn off the TV. Closing her door, I return to where Cassian paces the living room.
His liquid-dark gaze cuts to me. “How did he find—”
“I’m sure it was simple luck. He got too close to the township and patrol picked him up,” I quickly insert, not wanting him to realize that Will might be resistant to shading.
He shoots me an exasperated look. “Jacinda, he’s no innocent hiker.”
“Yeah. I know.” I fold my arms across my chest. “He’s a hunter.” A heavy silence stretches as I stare at him. “So why didn’t you say anything?”
“How do you know I won’t?”
“Will you?”
He sets his jaw at a stubborn angle, like he wants to say yes, but then he blows out a deep breath and briefly looks away, and I can’t tell whether he’s angrier with me or himself.
“So you can hate me? So I can watch them kill him? I would get no satisfaction in that.”
I can only stare, no longer so surprised that Cassian might truly care for me. Me and not simply what I am. He’s not my enemy. I believe he wants to help me. Why else would he bother protecting a boy I shouldn’t even care about?
“You have to let him go, Jacinda.”
I nod, but the motion is painful, makes my temples throb. “I know.”
“But he needs to know that,” he says, his voice heavy with meaning.
I meet his gaze, understanding dawning slowly. “You want me to speak with him?”
“Once he’s a good distance from the pride, you need to confront him and explain to him that it’s over between the two of you. I know he might be confused after being shaded, but you need to get through to him.”
I can’t look at him just then, not with what I suspect—that Will can’t be shaded. Would Cassian be as willing to let him go if he thought that?
Cassian steps closer and turns my chin to look at him. “Tell him to convince his family that this area is dry. That there aren’t any draki here anymore. We’ve moved on. They’ll listen to him.” The implication hangs there unsaid. They’ll listen to him because of the blood. Because he’s connected to us. Cassian lowers his face so close I can feel his breath on my cheek, and the memory of our kiss intrudes. If that isn’t enough to make me recoil, then his next words are. “If I see him here again, I won’t hide the truth anymore—whether you hate me for it or not. I won’t protect him again. Understand?”
I nod, a lump clogging my throat.
“C’mon.” He opens the front door to the misty night.
“Where are we going?” I ask.
“They’ll probably drop him in the usual spot. I want you waiting for him when he comes out.”
Chapter 11
I sip silent breaths from where I hide in a tree, the bark a rough scratch on my bare legs, needles poking me on all sides as I stare down at the spot where intruders who’ve been shaded are always dropped. It’s not far from the public road that carves deep into the mountain, the only official road this high. My heart still thunders in my ears from my mad dash to get here first.
The patrol moves quietly through the woods, but even so, I hear their slight rustling as they approach. Ludo breaks through the trees with Will slung over his shoulder, Remy right behind him. Wincing, I watch as Ludo drops Will unceremoniously to the hard ground. That had to hurt. If Will is faking unconsciousness and is actually awake, as I suspect, he did a good job masking any reaction to such rough treatment.
The two draki stare down at him for a moment. Remy nudges him sharply with his boot.
“C’mon,” Ludo says. “I’m hungry.”
I wait several moments after they leave, scanning the trees, making certain nothing moves and they are well and truly gone. Will lies on the ground very still, dead still, and I can’t wait any longer.
I climb down and rush toward him. Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe he’s not faking. Maybe he can be shaded.
I hover above him, holding out my hands in front of me, unsure where to touch. “Will.” His name escapes in a hush. As if I were afraid to say it aloud. As if giving voice to the name would make his being here untrue—make him vanish in a puff of smoke, into the mists that enclose us. As so much of me has vanished since returning here.
In the gloom, his eyes snap open. I jerk back, startled. He smiles those well-carved lips at me. Lips whose shape and texture are permanently imprinted on my memory.
I gasp, relieved, and say his name again, firmer this time. “Will.”
He stands in one easy move, with none of the lingering effects of someone shaded, confirming that I’m right. His draki blood has left him immune.
He moves toward me, and I meet him halfway—but then I recall myself and what I need to do. I quickly step back before we can come together. Holding up a hand to ward him off, I demand in a whisper, “What are you doing here?”
“Looking for you.” The sound of his voice makes me tremble. The velvet rumble sends shivers along my skin and tells me everything I already know. He hasn’t forgotten me. He still wants me. I swallow down the thick lump in my throat.
It’s the same. The way it’s always been around him. The idea of forgetting him and putting him out of my life is easier when I’m not confronted with him.
“You shouldn’t have come. You risk too much.”
“Jacinda.” He looks at me like I’ve lost my mind. “It’s me.” He seizes my hand, tugs me forward.
And I can’t not have this. Wrong or right, selfish or not. I’ll take this. Steal a moment with him. If only that. I’ll make it last. Make it enough.
He hauls me into his arms and holds me so tightly I wonder if he might not crack a rib. I look up into the shadow of his face and crave to see more of him, more than what the muted moonlight reveals to me.
But I can’t. This will have to be enough.
I press a palm to his cheek, savor the scratch of bristle. My heart swells at the sensation of him, the simple touch of his flesh against my hand. Something I never thought to feel again.
“You remembered me,” I whisper, searching his glowing eyes in the dark. “You remembered that night—”
“When everyone woke up confused, I figured out what happened. I remembered you telling me about Nidia and figured that’s what Tamra became. So I pretended I was just as confused as everyone else.” He laughed once, the sound a rough scrape on the air. “My cousins still don’t know what the hell happened to them. All they can guess is that someone slipped them a roofie.”
“Only you can remember?” Relief slumps my shoulders as Will nods. “Yeah. That night is a complete blank to them.”
To them. I stare at the shape of him in the deep gloom, at the gleam of his eyes as I let it sink in why only Will is so special.
The blood.
“It’s because you’re like us,” I murmur.
“What?” He tenses against me and something vibrates in his voice that tells me he understands my meaning. More than he would like.
I suck in a breath, force it down my too-tight throat. “Well, you’re enough like us apparently. A shader’s talent doesn’t work on other draki. You must have been transfused with enough draki blood to form a resistance to being shaded. That would explain how you’re so connected to us . . . so good at tracking us. You’re like us.”
We say nothing for a long moment, and I wonder if he’s thinking what I am.
How else is he different? How else is he not like humans? How else is he like me? Like a draki?
I shake my head. It’s too much to contemplate. And there’s no way to know. Not right now. I don’t know if it’s something we’ll ever know. But then it doesn’t matter, does it? Because we only have now. For us, there will be no tomorrow. No future.
“Does it disgust you?” he asks. “Do I?”
I know what he’s asking, but the answer isn’t simple. “I know you didn’t make any of it happen, and you’re alive as a result . . . but stolen blood flows through you. Draki were butchered . . . for you.”
“I know.” In the dark, his gleaming eyes don’t even blink. “I can’t deny anything that you’re saying. I didn’t know what my father was doing to me until it was over. You know that, right? You’ve got to believe that.”
“I do.”
His breath falls heavily. “Sometimes, at night, I feel them. In my dreams.”
I squeeze my eyes shut for a brief moment and have to give voice to that gnawing fear inside me. “Is my father one of—”
“No! It’s not possible. Don’t think it for a second. We only started hunting this area a little over a year ago.”
Relief ripples through me. “You could never disgust me, Will. I care about you too much.”
His hand moves along my spine and I shiver, recalling myself, and what I’ve come here to do.
“How’d you find me?” I ask, stalling, telling myself to pull away, to untangle myself from the wondrous feel of his arms around me. To disengage before it becomes too hard.
Too hard? I almost laugh. It’s already too hard.
“This is the third time I’ve been out here looking for you,” he admits.
“By yourself?” I tense and glance into the thick shadows, almost as if I expect a hunter to appear there.
“I’m alone now,” he assures me. “I came last time with my family. I slipped away while they . . .”
“Hunted,” I supply, my voice hard.
I shiver at the thought of hunters in these woods. So near the township. Now they have faces. They’re no longer the hazy bogeymen of nightmares. I can see them. His father. His uncles. His cousins, Xander and Angus. They were here. Recently.
I shake my head, anger rising in me that he dared to come back. He risked so much. And not just himself. He put every life in my pride in jeopardy. “It’s too dangerous for you to be here. You shouldn’t have come. If they knew who you were tonight . . .”
I shake my head. Losing him because I can’t see him again is one thing, but losing him because he’s gone, killed by my brethren . . .
That, I couldn’t handle. It would destroy me.
“I just looked like some guy hiking the mountain.”
“Tamra and Cassian recognized you.”
“And they said nothing.”
I nod. “For me. They kept silent for me. I promised I would get you to persuade your family to stop hunting this area.” I inhale a deep breath. “And I promised I would make sure you never came back here again—”
