Chapter 43

Chapter 43: Chapter 43

The water was cold, but Nyra had stopped feeling it minutes ago.

Soren scooped another handful of water and let it cascade down her bare shoulder. She shrieked a very un-princess-like sound that echoed through the quiet forest and scrambled away from him, her feet slipping on the smooth stones of the stream bed.

"Ahhh! It’s cold!"

"It’s a mountain stream. What did you expect?"

"I expected you to be a gentleman!"

"I’m a wolf. Wolves aren’t gentlemen." He scooped another handful and advanced on her with a predatory gleam in his dark eyes. "We’re hunters."

"Don’t you dare—"

He dared.

The water hit her square in the face, and Nyra spluttered, pushing her wet hair out of her eyes. "Oh, you’re going to regret that." She scooped her own handful and launched it at him. Soren shifted back, but the water still caught him across the chest, dripping down the carved planes of his abdomen.

He looked down at himself, then back up at her. His face arranged itself into an expression of mock severity. "Is that how you want to continue this, little princess?"

"That’s exactly how I want to continue this."

"Then you’ve declared war."

The battle that followed was chaotic and cold and utterly ridiculous. They chased each other through the stream, splashing and laughing and slipping on the wet stones. Nyra’s laughter echoed off the trees, bright and uninhibited, the kind of laugh she hadn’t made since before her brother died. Soren’s usually stoic face had cracked into something else entirely a playful smirk that transformed him from the terrifying Sword Sovereign into something much more human.

He caught her around the waist from behind, and she shrieked again, twisting in his grip. "Let me go! This is unfair! You’re twice my size!"

"Three times."

"That’s not better!"

He scooped water over her head, and she came up sputtering and laughing and gasping for breath. Then, suddenly, his grip loosened. His face contorted into something that looked like pain. He doubled over, one hand pressed to his side.

"Soren?" Nyra’s laughter died instantly. "Soren, what’s wrong?"

He made a pained sound, his shoulders hunching.

Her heart stopped. The rogue attack. The wounds he’d sustained. She’d been so caught up in the splashing and the laughter that she’d forgotten he’d been fighting for his life an hour ago. She rushed to his side, her hands reaching for his face, tilting it up toward hers.

"What is it? Where does it hurt? Is it your shoulder? Your ribs? Talk to me!"

He looked up at her, and his face was perfectly fine.

"Got you," he said.

Then he grabbed her waist and scooped a wave of water directly into her face.

Nyra came up spluttering. "You—you absolute—" She couldn’t even finish the sentence. She was laughing too hard. "That was mean! I thought you were really hurt!"

"You’re very gullible."

"I’m not gullible. I’m concerned. There’s a difference."

"Is there?"

"Yes! Concerned is what you feel when the person you—" She stopped. The word caught in her throat.

Soren’s smirk faded. "The person you what?"

She didn’t answer. She couldn’t. Because suddenly they were standing very close together in the cold water, and his hands were still on her waist, and her palms were still pressed against his chest, and the laughter had faded into something else entirely. Something heavy.

The world around them seemed to hold its breath. The stream continued to rush past their legs. The moon continued to shine overhead. But everything else the forest, the rogues, the academy, the war faded into nothing.

Soren lifted his hand and touched her cheek. His fingers were cold from the water, but his touch was gentle. Reverent. As if she was something precious and fragile that he was afraid of breaking.

"I am afraid," he said quietly, "to admit what I feel for you, Nyra. I don’t know if it’s the right thing. Mate bond or no mate bond. I have been a coward this past week. I was hurt and angry when you removed your hand from mine because you didn’t want to talk to me. And then I saw you with Corvin."

Nyra’s eyes widened. "You saw me with Corvin?"

"I did. I was coming to find you. To talk to you. But you were walking to the lake with him, holding his hand. I badly wanted to go and drag you from his side, but I couldn’t. No matter how angry I was, no matter how much my wolf raged at me to intervene, I could only watch you from afar. I walked away when I couldn’t watch anymore."

"We were just talking," Nyra said immediately, her voice urgent. "About the Moonblood lineage. About the mate bond. About things I didn’t understand yet. I don’t have anything with him, Soren. Not the way I—" She stopped herself.

"Not the way you what?"

She looked up at him, her silver eyes glistening. "Not the way I have something with you."

Soren exhaled. It was a shaky sound, almost a laugh but not quite. "I know. I know, Nyra. I just didn’t want to face my feelings. That’s why I stayed away. That’s why I let Valeria hang on my arm. That’s why I walked past you without looking at you. Not because I didn’t care. Because I cared too much."

"Then why are you still afraid?"

"Because I don’t know what the future holds. For either of us. You’re the heir to your pack throne. I’m the son of a King. There’s a war coming. My family.. Everything is uncertain, and I don’t—" He struggled for words. "I don’t want to start something I can’t finish."

Nyra reached up and covered his hand with her own. "Then don’t think about the future, Soren. We’re in the present. Right here. Right now. Why don’t we live it to the fullest and let the future decide itself? Why should we let fear determine what happens between us? Can’t our feelings just be enough?"

She was crying now. She hadn’t meant to, but the tears were there, hot against her cold cheeks. "Or is the feeling you have for me not enough? Is it not enough to make you want me?"

"No." The word came out fierce, almost angry. "Never. My feelings for you are very real. I don’t think I have ever felt this way for anyone else in my entire life. You are not a passing fancy, Nyra Astrlyn. You are not a distraction or a convenience or a full-moon comfort. You are—" He stopped, his jaw tight. "You are everything I never knew I wanted."

He used his thumb to wipe the tears from her cheeks.

"I mean it," he said. "My feelings are real."

And then he kissed her.

It was soft at first tentative, almost questioning, as if he was still afraid she might pull away. But when she didn’t, when she leaned into him and parted her lips and made a small, desperate sound in the back of her throat, something in him broke free.

The kiss deepened. His hand slid from her cheek to the back of her neck, threading through her wet silver hair. Her fingers gripped his shoulders, her nails digging into his skin. The cold water swirled around their legs, but neither of them felt it anymore. There was only this the press of his lips against hers, the warmth of his body in the freezing stream, the months of tension and denial and longing finally, finally finding release.

When they broke apart, they were both breathing hard.

"That," Nyra whispered, "took you long enough."

Soren laughed—a real laugh, surprised and warm. "I was working up to it."

"For weeks?"

"I’m a thorough worker."

She punched his chest lightly, but he caught her hand and pressed it flat against his heart. She could feel it beating beneath her palm, fast and strong and steady.

"I’m not afraid anymore," he said quietly. "Not of this. Not of us."

"Good." She rose on her toes and kissed him again. "Because I’m not letting you run away from me again."

"I wouldn’t dream of it."

Corvin opened his eyes.

For a long moment, he simply stared at the ceiling, trying to piece together where he was and how he’d gotten there. The ceiling was unfamiliar stone, not the wooden beams of his private quarters. The bed beneath him was too hard. The air smelled of herbs and medicine and something faintly metallic.

Then the memories flooded back.

The Mistwood. The rogues. Lucian’s scream. The wolfsbane claw tearing through his friend’s side. The desperate run through the forest with Lucian on his back. The gates of the academy, the hands reaching out to help him, the darkness swallowing him whole.

He sat up too fast, and his head spun.

"Easy," he muttered to himself, pressing a hand to his temple. "Easy."

He looked around the room. The healer’s wing. Of course. Two beds. One of them was his. The other—

Killian lay in the far bed, his arm wrapped in fresh bandages, his dark hair spread across the pillow. His chest rose and fell in the slow rhythm of deep sleep. He looked peaceful. Almost innocent.

He came back alive, Corvin thought. At least one more person made it.

He swung his legs over the side of the bed and stood. His muscles protested, but he ignored them. He had been unconscious for hours. That was more than enough rest. He needed to find Lucian. He needed to find out if Nyra was back.

He needed to know if she was safe.