Zach shook his head with a sad smile. “Don’t worry, it won’t happen again.”
“What won’t?” I asked. “Saving my life?”
“No.” The muscles in his jaw tightened, and his hand gripped a little tighter. “Putting you in a position where I had to do that in the first place.”
I lowered my gaze to his collarbone, finding yet another scar. It was long—nearly six inches. “And what position was that?”
“You. Alone. I won’t do that again.”
A foreign feeling stretched from my stomach into my limbs. It was like a hundred wind wisps were trapped inside me, fluttering and flying about, riding the currents of my bloodstream.
Still holding my hand to his chest, he traced a darkening bruise on my wrist where my shield had broken. “It’s not that I think you’re weak.You’re the strongest princess I’ve ever met. But I’m not used to anyone suffering the consequences of my decisions. I’ve…always fought alone.”
How ironic that I never had. Except for just a few days ago at the breach in the wall. Still, considering my past, I wasn’t the best person to teach him about partnership.
“Um, I hate to interrupt,” Brom said, having finished attaching his crossbow to his saddlebags, “but shouldn’t we get moving?”
I ripped my fingers out of Zach’s hand and retreated behind Lorena. Before I finished dressing, I threw him a rag. “Wipe off the blood. You don’t want another ruined tunic.”
“Gladly,” Zach said, rubbing at his chest. He pulled a new shirt over his head, then vaulted onto his horse and started Vel off at a steady canter.
Brom hung back with me as we mounted and urged our horses into a trot.
He glanced at me. “You know…”
“Don’t.”
“I’ve never seen you go that red. And men have been bare-chested in front of you before.”
I grimaced. “He surprised me. That’s all.”
Bromley smiled but didn’t say anything else.
He was right not to push, because those thoughts were dangerous. If I admitted to myself I found Zach attractive and had enjoyed the feel of his arms while in the forest, it was admitting that I felt…Lust.
That kind of distraction was inexcusable for a mission as important as this one. Maybe if we didn’t have a Sable Dragon to destroy, and maybe if Zach wasn’t a Romantica who believed feelings of Lust were only a precursor to Love, then…
I shook my head.
It was possible I might’ve tasted the feeling of Lust when Amias had kissed me that night…but the feeling of losing grip, of succumbing to anything, had terrified me.
I certainly wasn’t going to allow myself to feel anything such as that for Zach.
Amias was always so rough, holding me in a way that felt demanding and consuming, while Zach… I could almost feel him tracing the bruise on my wrist from moments before, and again the one on my cheek left by my mother. It had been tender and warm…two things that were even more dangerous.
…
We rode hard all day in an attempt to make up for lost time. It was also a good excuse to avoid Zach and the tension that still sizzled between us.
At dusk, the terrain had changed from rolling hills to thick trees spaced widely apart over flat land. We dismounted to give our horses rest and kept walking, hoping to reach the outskirts of the next forest before we stopped for the night.
As we entered the wood, with its wide, well-traveled paths and large old trees, I marveled at the fading sun shining through the mangled branches. It reminded me of the gold specks that were the final remnants of the griffin.
Brom and I had discussed ideas of what it could have been, but none seemed plausible.
It perplexed me. Yet it was more than that… It disturbed me. For one, I had never seen a monster do that, not in all the many creatures I’d faced and battles I’d fought. They had all either dissolved into black smoke as the ground burned at their feet, or they crumbled like dry clay. It couldn’t be the type of monster, either, because I’d helped take down plenty of griffins, and none of them had ever done that.
Entrapped in my thoughts, I didn’t notice my pace slow. Soon I was walking right next to Zach, with Bromley some distance ahead.
I wanted to avoid an awkward silence while walking next to each other, but I felt suddenly speeding up would be too obvious.
It was also the easy way out. If I wanted to defeat this dragon with his help, with our Kiss, I needed us to be real partners.
I cleared my throat. “So are we going to talk about what happened in the forest?”
“I told you: I don’t know what happened with the gold—”
“Not that. Well, yes that, but also…it was a close call back there. You could’ve died. You almost did. If you would’ve—”
“I’m not going to Kiss you, Ivy,” Zach snapped.
“Sacred Sisters,” I breathed through my teeth. “Yes, you’ve made that abundantly clear, thank you. I was talking about you just running off, leaving me.”
“I told you, it won’t happen again. But besides that…I had a plan.”
“Which you should’ve included me in.”
“I was going to, but you wouldn’t shut up about the Kiss.”
“I just wanted you to understand we were taking an unnecessary risk.”
Zach stiffened, his fingers tensing on his horse’s bridle. “Oh, you mean by trying to manipulate me? Actually, I think the word is seduce me into Kissing you.”
My pulse quickened, in either anger or embarrassment, I wasn’t sure, but I couldn’t let it drop. “I did what I thought would save us—and it would have, by the way.”
Zach let out a dry laugh and shook his head. “How typical of you Royals. You even use Lust as a weapon. How do you sleep at night, knowing you toy with people’s emotions?”
“And how typical of you Romantica. Running when people need you,” I spat. “Your speed is legendary—could it be because you spent most of your life running?”
The words had been out of my mouth for less than a second before I realized I had said something terribly wrong. Zach suddenly halted. There was a rigidness in every muscle of his body, and his eyes were wide with horror. At least, I thought that’s what it was, but the emotion was gone too quickly to be sure, replaced instead with a look I’d seen on my own reflection many times: regret.
I reached for him, wanting to correct whatever I’d said wrong. “Zach—”
“No.”
It was one word, but it said so much. It was no to my apology. No to anything else I could say. No to me.
I retracted my hand and slowed, with his rejection forming a solid barrier between us.
...
The next hour or two, until the sun went down and we could progress no farther into the woods without the aid of a torch, we traveled in complete silence. Bromley, bless him, seemed to sense that sour words had been exchanged, and Zach was in a dark mood because of it—a mood Brom understood not to interrupt.
I knew better than to try speaking to him, too, mostly because I guessed he wasn’t ready to hear any apologies. Plus, bringing it up around Bromley felt awkward. In truth, during those achingly long minutes of silent travel, I agonized over what I’d said. What did I know about his past? What did I know about all those scars? I hadn’t meant for it to turn so personal.
When we found a good spot to make camp, we started our usual ritual of feeding the horses, getting the fire going, and pulling out the provisions, all with barely a word passed among the three of us. Anything that needed to be discussed, Zach’s answers were short, and anything he needed to say, he directed at Bromley. He didn’t even look at me. Not once.
My stomach rolled and frothed with guilt as I fed Lorena her dinner. She chewed the oats from my hand and seemed pleased to find bits of dried orange peels mixed in—her very favorite. But even Lorena’s ticklish nose as she searched for more citrus didn’t make me smile.
After we had eaten, Bromley jumped up from his spot by the fire. “I think I’ll go get some more firewood.”