Vanish

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—”

“You promised that?” His voice lashes me. “To who? Cassian? I’m not surprised he wanted to make sure I never come near you again.”

I want to deny that, want to say that Cassian wants Will gone simply because it’s the right thing. The safe thing. It’s not about jealousy or possession.

Closing my eyes in an agonized blink, I say nothing. A short time ago, Cassian was holding me like Will holds me now. I let him hold me. Kiss me.

With a choked sound, I pull away from Will, feeling like a traitor. Even if it was the loneliness, my own vulnerability that drove me into Cassian’s arms… I liked it.

Will pulls me back. “What do you want? You want me to leave and never come back?”

I go unresisting into his arms. I’m too weak. I’ve missed him too much. I thought I could put him behind me, find a future within the pride and while that prospect killed a part of me, this, right now, might be worse. Holding him, smelling his familiar scent, having him for a short time and then saying good-bye all over again. It’s a dive right back into hell.

I peer through the dark, feast on what I can see of his face. The aching beauty of him. The deeply set eyes beneath dark brows. The hair that constantly rebels, falling over his forehead, begging for my hand to brush it back. His mouth, his lips.

I commit it all to memory, determined to imprint him on my soul for those quiet moments alone, in the dark, when I can reflect.

His fingers flex on my arms. “So you’re giving up on us, Jacinda?”

I search his face in the shadows. “It’s dangerous. Not just for us. For others, too. Countless lives.”

His hands slide up my arms to my face and it’s too much. His broad palms. His strong fingers so tender as they hold me. My eyes burn. I blink them fiercely in an attempt to dry them.

“Where’s your faith?” His thumbs gently press into my cheeks. “We can figure out a way.”

I shake my head. “You don’t know what it’s been like.”

“Did they hurt you?” His voice takes on an edge, and his hands tighten slightly. “When you came back, did they—”

“No,” I say quickly. “I’m fine. Not that I don’t deserve punishment. Will, I revealed myself to hunters.”

“Let’s make it just you and me then. No pride. No hunters. We don’t have to risk anyone else.”

“What are you saying?”

“Run away with me.”