“Elara—”
She didn’t have time to answer.
His mouth captured hers in a hard, fierce, hungry kiss.
Everything he’d held back, every denial, every command, every crack in his armor, poured into that single moment.
It wasn’t gentle or measured. It was desperate. It was claiming. It was apology and fury and desire tangled into one unbreakable pull.
And the night swallowed them whole.
Chapter Twelve
Northen Woods
Close to Caerith
* * *
Elara pushed at his chest, and she could feel his reluctance to release her, but he did. She staggered back a step, her breath caught somewhere between her chest and throat. Her lips still tingled from his kiss, the heat of it lingering like a brand she could not scrub away. She pressed a trembling hand to her mouth, furious that her body still reeled from his touch when her mind screamed sense at her. She had been foolish to trust him, to let him close, to allow the seed of something tender to spark inside her when betrayal had been in his heart all along.
Her pulse thudded painfully as she stared at him in the dim forest light. Dar stood mere inches from her, chest rising and falling harder than he intended to show, jaw clenched, eyes locked on hers with a hunger he could not quite hide… and a regret he could not fully bury.
“Do not touch me again,” she whispered, though her voice lacked the steel she wished it carried. The ache beneath her ribs betrayed her, an ache she despised.
He took a step toward her.
She stepped back.
“Stay away.”
Something flickered across his face. Not anger. Not the fierce Hunter’s discipline he’d worn like armor since Barloch. Something softer, raw, quickly crushed and hidden as if it had no right to exist.
“Elara—” he began.
“Nay,” she cut sharply. “I was a fool to believe anything you let me see. A fool to trust the man you pretended to be.”
His jaw flexed. “The man I was with you—was not pretend.”
She laughed bitterly, though the sound nearly broke. “Lies come easily to Hunters. It is what you are trained for.”
“I never lied about keeping you safe.”
“That,” she said, her voice finally steadying, “is the worst lie of all. Because part of me still wants to believe it.”
Her eyes burned, but she refused to let tears fall. Not in front of him. Never in front of him.
Dar’s breath left him in a slow, strained exhale. For a moment, he looked as if he might reach for her again, but he stopped himself, hands balling into fists at his sides.
He said nothing and, in the silence, she realized something chilling, the kiss had not been a mistake. It had been a confession. One she could not afford to hear.
Elara tore her gaze from him and strode past him toward the camp, refusing to look back even when she longed to, even when she felt the weight of his eyes follow her through the darkening sky.
She stepped back into the small clearing the Hunters had claimed for the night, the fire spits holding freshly caught meat cooking over them. Shadows moved between the trees, silent men, watchful, always watching. She kept her chin high as she crossed into the camp, though her heart still hammered from the confrontation with Dar.
Feena knelt beside Muir near one of the fires, Adira hovering close behind her. Muir’s sleeve was shoved up past his elbow, the bloody cloth unwrapped, the wound beneath swollen and red. Feena’s brow was drawn in deep lines of concern as she dabbed a mixture of crushed leaves and boiled water along the inflamed skin.
“You waited too long,” Feena scolded softly, her voice firm but weary. “Far too long. The wound festers, and I fear the rot has already begun.”