I scrambled to my feet with a glare, my cheeks tear-stained as I wiped them furiously and raised my tree branch higher. “You
couldn’t have come to the rescue sooner?” I asked, the bitterness I felt weighing my voice lower.
Caelum tilted his head to the side, his eyes narrowing on the way my body hunched over my aching ribs. “Apologies, Estrella. I’ll try to stalk you faster the next time you walk away from me.” Caelum shook his head at me as if I was amusing, turning back to where the leader of the Hunt stared at him like he’d been consumed by hysteria.
I had to imagine the Fae Marked didn’t usually run toward the danger of a life of captivity, but instead, as far away as they could manage. The Huntsman who’d wrapped his inky magic around my waist and prevented me from falling to my death stepped closer, tipping his upper body toward me as if that might protect his balls from my wrath.
I swung with my branch, following through on the swing even though he ducked back to avoid it. He chuckled, shaking his head from side to side as he stepped closer and evaded my second swing too. The branch was just too heavy for me to move with any speed, in spite of the adrenaline surging through my body as I fought for my freedom.
To my right, the sound of swords clashing together rang through the night. I glanced over, daring that moment of eye contact away from my opponent to watch Caelum move as if he was one with his blades. Wherever he’d trained, whatever his life had been, he avoided the leader of the Wild
Hunt with a grace I’d never seen. His swords carved through the air gracefully, almost like he was dancing despite the bulk of his body and breadth of his shoulders.
He should have moved like a slug with all that muscle mass—more brawn than skill. Instead, he was as if carved from nightmares and crafted in sin. He was dangerous and beautiful and all the things a woman had no right to want for herself.
He was my only chance at freedom and a distraction I didn’t need, all at once.
The branch tore out of my hands when my opponent used my moment of gawking at Caelum to his advantage. The wood splintered under my skin, drawing a gasp from me that distracted Caelum from his fight. He turned to me, his face concerned as one sword paused in the air. “I’m fine!” I shouted, ducking down to avoid the Huntsman’s arms closing in to grab me. Lunging forward, I pulled the knife from the sheath strapped to his thigh and quickly stabbed him in the side three times. The Huntsman groaned, dropping to his knees in front of me as I spun on mine and darted to my
feet.
“Gods,” Caelum breathed at my side, his eyes narrowing on my face for a brief moment as I drove my aching body away from the fallen Fae. There was no guilt. No self-reprimand within me for sinking a blade into his flesh. Not when he hadn’t hesitated for a single moment before running my brother through with his sword.
With the second Huntsman immobilized, I spun and raced for the cliff face with only regret for leaving Caelum to fight on his own.
He’d interfered on my behalf, rescued me from capture, only for me to abandon him in turn. The Huntsmen lurking at the edge of the woods kicked their skeletal horses forward as I turned my back on them, their hounds snapping their teeth as they exploded into movement. They kicked up the dirt as they raced toward me, their mouths dripping with the thick saliva that melted into shadows as their claws sank into the ground.
“Estrella!” Caelum yelled, raising a booted foot to kick the leader of the Wild Hunt away from him with a sudden burst of force that sent the other man sprawling onto his back. His voice echoed through the air, raising the hair on my arms as a chill swept over my skin.
The hounds snapped at my heels as I ran for the edge of the cliff, those enormous teeth clicking together as I reached it and threw myself off while
shifting the dagger into my injured arm.
I fell, spinning as my body went weightless and I had to fight to suppress the scream that tried to claw its way up my throat. I faced the hounds who growled at the missed opportunity for a taste of my blood before they returned me to their master.
Caelum’s dark eyes landed on mine, his face twisting with shock as he stumbled back from his fight with the Huntsman and ran toward me— heedless of the hounds waiting for him at the edge. I dropped below the cliff, flailing my arms and legs.
I grabbed onto one of the tree roots sticking out from the dirt and clay of the cliff face, and my shoulder jerked from the sudden stop, the bones throbbing as I clung to the root in desperation. Unlike the weak and nearly useless one, my shoulder held as my body swung. The skin on my hand tore open, the bark of the root scraping it off.
“Estrella!” Caelum roared again, his voice echoing through the void where the land dropped away to ocean. I ignored the plea in it, pushing past the overwhelming urge to tell him I was safe.
Reaching with a pained grunt, I dropped the dagger, listening for the sound of it splashing into the water. I grabbed a lower tree root, searching for a place to put my feet as I prepared to lower myself down the wall. Brann had to be there. There had to be some sign of him and what had happened after he fell. I needed to see him, needed the closure that would come from laying eyes on his body.
The clay supported the very tips of my shoes, allowing me to move myself down the cliff with painful slowness while the sound of fighting rang out through the air above me, reassuring me that, at least for the moment, Caelum was okay.
He hadn’t yet been captured, but it was only a matter of time.
My arms ached as I continued to lower myself, my toes grappling for purchase to take some of the pressure off my limbs that were nowhere near strong enough to support my entire weight for long. I couldn’t believe I’d survived the fall at all, that I’d been capable of the strength to catch myself in the first place.
It had definitely been one of those moments where I’d acted first, with no thought for how exactly I would get back up to the top after I found what remained of my brother.
I shoved down a strange surge of guilt for choosing to look for Brann instead of helping Caelum fight. My brother would always come before a stranger, even one who called to the part of me that wanted to belong somewhere. It was my fault I was plunging down a cliff to try to find my brother’s body.
He couldn’t be dead, but I couldn’t move on until I knew. And I wouldn’t be responsible for the same happening to Caelum, if he did manage to escape the Wild Hunt and leave me behind. He was far better off without me to put him in danger.
I lowered myself down the cliff, dropping to a rocky ledge, my urgency making me careless about whether it would hold or crumble beneath the sudden impact of my weight. My legs buckled beneath me as I rocked forward to prevent them from breaking, then scrambled to my feet and stumbled down the sand and dirt to the receding tide below.
At the edge, I walked farther until the icy seawater rushed into my worn boots and filled the soles with needles of ice, until the water claimed me as I stumbled to my knees and the waves crashed over my head.
I rose, emerging from the salt water and flinging my hair back as I scrubbed my hand over my face. “Brann!” I screamed, searching left and right. The night was too dark to see far, the water a well of black at my feet as I felt around for where he might have landed, but I couldn’t rest until I saw him for myself. Until I laid eyes on his body and knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that my brother was gone, I wouldn’t be able to stop.
I turned to look back at the steep slope behind me, searching for a body on the shore with my eyes as I searched under the surface with my feet. If he’d managed to swim to land, the cold could have rendered him unable to move any farther. There was no sign of him, so I spun forward and prepared to dive back into the water.
I’d been meant to die with him anyway, so I’d search for him until I did. Unforgiving hands wrapped around my waist and sent a shock of pain through my torso, lifting me off my feet as their owner walked us back toward the shore. “No!” I screamed, kicking my legs through the black
water at our feet. “Let me go! I have to find him!”
“He’s gone, Little One,” Caelum murmured in my ear as he dragged me back. “You should be, too. What the fuck were you thinking with that stunt?”
A strangled sob climbed up my throat as I clawed at his arms in a last bid to get free. I’d barely managed to climb down on my own, stumbling over my own feet as I hurried down the last of the hill at the bottom of the cliff, but somehow Caelum navigated up with one arm wrapped around me, dragging me with him.
“Let go!” I screamed, the sound bouncing off his neck where he wrapped me in his embrace to haul me up the last of the hill.
“You have to be quiet,” he snapped, looking up at the top of the cliff where the Wild Hunt probably still waited for us. “Your brother is gone. He will not answer you from the Void, no matter how loudly you call to him. Nothing human could have survived that.”
“I did,” I argued, glancing back toward the water.
“And you are no longer human,” he said pointedly, touching a freezing hand to the Mark on my neck as we crested the hill, above the high tide line, and he settled us down flat against the dirt as he watched the cliff for any sign of movement. He laid his body atop mine, pressing me into the ground at my back with his weight as he spoke the words. They resonated with the part of me that had clung to my hope. Brann had always been stronger, more agile than I was, but even he wouldn’t have been skilled enough to climb down, especially not after being stabbed in the stomach. My body went lax beneath Caelum’s; all the fight draining out of me as reality settled over me.
My brother was gone. He’d never annoy me with his overprotectiveness again. He’d never smile at me when he thought I was being foolish but he loved me anyway.
He’d never live.
My bottom lip trembled as I shook my head, staring up into Caelum’s dark eyes as he dropped his forehead to mine. “I’m sorry, Little One,” he whispered, watching as I let my eyes drift closed. The urge to follow Brann into death like I’d promised plucked at the edges of my consciousness as the cold settled into my bones. “I need to get you warm.”
Caelum lifted himself off me, hauling me into his grip until my legs draped over one arm and he wrapped the other around my back. He carried me over the ledge at the base of the cliff, poking it with his toe every step he took.
My teeth chattered as I glanced down at the pea-green fabric of my dress, wincing when I realized how it clung to my skin. Caelum didn’t
allow himself to be distracted by it, searching along the ground for something until he breathed a sigh of relief.
A cave just large enough for the two of us and high enough that we should be safe from the rising tide stared back at me when I turned my head to look at what he’d seen. He stepped inside it quickly, glancing up at the top of the cliff as he did, to make sure we weren’t spotted.
Once we were tucked as far back as the cave would allow, he gently lowered me to the ground and stripped off his cloak. Draping it around my shoulders and drawing the hood up to cover my wet hair, he didn’t so much as shiver as he gathered what wood and moss he could find from the cave entrance.
He pulled flint from his pocket, striking his dagger against it until sparks lit up the cave. He got a fire going with efficiency I’d never seen, stepping away as it touched the wood and started to emit heat. He came back to me, arranging himself behind me and pulling me against his chest.
I stared at the flames, watching them dance over the dirt walls of the cave that had offered us shelter. Caelum laid us down, curling his body into the back of mine. Indifferently, outside the numbness in my body and the numbness in my heart, I realized I’d never been held this way.
I’d never lain down with a man and just…been. In another time, another world, it might have been nice to fit together with someone so perfectly—to feel complete in another person’s arms—but in this one, it felt like a betrayal of everything Brann had warned me about.
I wept, watching the fire dance until my eyes drifted closed to the rhythmic sound of Caelum’s breath behind me, his heart beating in tandem with mine.
