Drothiker
27.

Unexplainedly, Syrene’s each instinct went on alert.

She only caught a glimpse of Azryle from the corner of her eye, heard the whisper of water with his steps before she felt a cloth around herself and his arm hoisting her up, then she was hurled over his broad shoulder. His citrus and musk scent heaved up her nose.

With a shock, she noticed she was out of water the next moment, his speed morphed the surroundings hazy, wind itched at her skin.

She bounced and slammed into his shoulder, burrowing in her stomach with a brutal impact. “What are you doing,” she barked over the winds. She was suddenly very mindful of her nakedness under the cloak he’d swathed around her, his arms on her bare legs.

“Saving you from being a dinner, cub,” he murmured.

Syrene craned her neck, half expecting to see some beast, but there were only trees stretching everywhere possible. It was only when she focused past the bellowing of wind, did she hear them—those distant, low snarls. Too many, too revolting. Her blood went cold.

“Why are they trailing us?” she gasped. “I thought they feared you.”

“They aren’t trailing us,” he breathed. “Only you.”

She knocked her fear away before it could spark. “Why?”

To that, the ripper didn’t reply. She didn’t suppose he had any.

“Where are you—”

Before she could complete, they entered a cave and Azryle perched her down against a stone wall. She shut her eyes and groaned at the pain in her stomach, at the unease the soaked cloth around her damp body instigated.

Syrene opened her eyes to catch Azryle looking away, he ambled to the cave mouth, and she knew why when she peered down at herself. The cloak had hiked up, baring her thighs wholly, it’d slopped from her shoulder. She adjusted it and rolled her eyes. “Seriously, Azryle?” she groaned. “I’m fairly certain you’ve seen enough naked women.”

“And?” His gaze remained scanning the woods outside, his voice almost guttural. Syrene contained herself from grinning.

“And”—she lifted to her feet—“you obviously know each possible art of a woman’s body.”

Being naked didn’t put her at unease—not in the least. For five years in Jegvr, perceived by almost every sentinel, clad in nothing but a too-diaphanous dress, touched everywhere while being bathed, after draining the first year in pure horror, Syrene had eventually stopped caring.

What did put her at unease, though, was Azryle’s gaze when he turned to her. Her whole body prickled as she caught a gleam of desire—wild, untamed—blistering ferociously in his eyes. It was all she could do to keep herself from showing what it tugged in her.

His gaze remained on her face as he whispered, so softly that she barely heard it, “It’s not whether or not I’ve seen enough naked women to know the art, it’s not even whether or not I want to look. It’s whether the woman wants to be looked at—that’s what matters.” He drew closer, enough for the heat of his body to seep into hers. And her breath hitched when he scraped his knuckles down her cheek, calluses rasped against her skin. And it took everything in her to not give into it. “Do you want to be looked at, Alpenstride?”

Abyss spare her. Her name at his lips was a melody to her ears. It had never—never—sounded so wonderful. So undoing. She had to dig her feet in the dirt to keep her toes from curling, for she knew Azryle was aware of her each breath, each movement in her muscles.

The mischief in his eyes was unmistakable as his thumb traced the corner of suddenly-very-dry lips—but so was the yearning burning there, reflecting her own no doubt. His long, thick lashes touched his cheeks, as his gaze slowly lowered to her mouth.

Those treacherous lips were again too near her own—he’d sunk his head, she realized. If she lifted her chin a bit, if only she listened to this roaring, burning sensation in herself and lifted to her toes, she will be facing destruction in her very self.

Syrene’s pride refused to succumb so easily beneath the piercing glare of his mischief. “If you want to look at me, Prince,” she replied finally onto his thumb now tracing her lower lip, as if imagining the taste of it, “just say so.” Each next word rougher than the previous.

A wicked smirk tugged at his lips, another gleam in his eyes set her toes curling. Wildness—it was pure wildness.

Those knuckles went scraping down to her jaw, and her deceitful head tilted to give his hand access to her neck. That was when Azryle crooned, “Oh, I’ve been wanting to do more than just look at you.”

Systems be damned.

Syrene wanted to know what it would be like to taste an enemy; for all she knew, she might as well be dead in a week.

Her chin lifted. “Kiss me, then, Azryle,” she whispered, and rose to her toes, leaving their lips parted by a whisker. “Release me.”

A tether seemed to have snapped from him.

Azryle’s arm slid to her lower back, pressing her tight against himself. He pinned her against a nearby brutal wall.

Those long lashes brushed her cheeks as his mouth crashed into hers.

Syrene burned. Her blood thrummed.

Kissing Azryle was like walking on fire, or being hurled knives at and surviving. It was a thrill that sparked life in her, and yet crumpled her to ashes.

It was like being alive, but dying from craving.

But most of all, it was like having lightning rushing through her blood and striking her over and over.

She hadn’t had many kisses before, she’d certainly never had any that felt like this: ones that threatened to burn her so fiercely that even the ashes ceased to exist.

A shudder went through her, and she could have sworn he smiled onto her lips.

His kiss only deepened until she was nothing but a sweltering bulk of a body. Until she forgot her name, her being. And there was only one name thrumming with her blood. Azryle, Azryle, Azryle, Azryle—

He pulled back, but didn’t release her. And it was only then she noticed his hands had remained only on her waist—Syrene doubted that was usually the case. The longing—even stormier than before—suggested the same.

What shook her was the way his eyes so intensely traced her face with a pain she was too familiar with. A kind of recognition.

Azryle stepped back, leaving the air to rob his heat from her, something like horror seizing his eyes. And rage—pure and hideous rage blazed there. Any heat from her declined when he divulged what caused it.

“Who gave you those marks on your back?”

She stilled. That was why his hands had remained on her waist, never venturing to her back—because he knew how personal those scars would be to her. Knew exactly what sort of horrors would he be pressing if he touched them. Knew, because he bore the twin ones on his own back.

She’d almost let him trace those scars—almost let him invade her nightmares, her life.

Syrene felt sick to her stomach.

“Who gave you those scars,” he repeated with nothing but lethal violence in his voice.

And that violence … She knew—if she told him, he would hunt the overseer of Jegvr down and skin him alive. She knew Azryle would cleave his very soul apart. If only because he couldn’t do that to his own assailant—to Felset.

But Syrene gave away nothing. That overseer was her target. Her key to the vengeance she desired so severely. Even if she died in this duel, she will replace a way to return from Saqa to hunt the man down and fracture his bones, his muscles. Until there would be nothing but blood left of him.

She was shaking all over again—with hatred, this time, and the noxious rage she knew so well—phantom burning nipped at her back.

“Syrene.”

“That’s none of your business,” she snapped, clutching the cloak at her chest, feeling more naked than ever. Then regretted her words instantly. Syrene shook her head, trying to clear her vision, her mind. “I—”

Light flashed.

Both their gazes snapped to the cave mouth, where he’d assembled a barrier, apparently.

Snarls and hisses were what filled the silence.

Azryle unsheathed Silencer from across his back as the beasts continued launching themselves on the barrier, then slid out a few daggers from everywhere in his clothes. He stretched the daggers towards her. “I hope you’re equipped to put all your training to use.”

Syrene took them. “Ryle—”

Then he took off his shirt over his arms and head and extended it towards her. “Do you need this, or do you want to fight naked?”

For a moment, she assumed he was mocking her. But the gravity on his face suggested otherwise. “I have no intentions of seducing baeselk.” She took the shirt.

Azryle smirked. Then drawled, “It would have been easier if you’d been willing to.”

Of course he was not distraught with her, didn’t demand answers, if only because she’d stolen his from Maeren. Loose Queen Felset’s leash might be at nights, but it was still there, still stringing him.

Enemy, Syrene found herself reminding herself again. Azryle was her enemy, and that did excuse any sort of coldness from her, regret should be the last thing she should be feeling.

Not a friend—no matter how much she wanted him as one—but an enemy.

Her death.

Azryle looked away as she slid off the cloak and threw on his too-big shirt, concealing down almost to her knees. Citrus and musk scent filled her nostrils. Syrene frowned down at it, feeling very small, but said nothing.

“I have to say …”

Syrene’s head shot up at the voice, her gut churned. Everything in her stilled.

“Of everything I imagined during the course of my trek here, this is the sight that didn’t dawn on me.”

Breathing was a monumental task as Syrene gazed towards the cave mouth. Her breath cut short.

“Hello, Rene.” Deisn’s smirk was oddly similar to that of a spider’s, utterly unruffled by all the baeselk around her. Utterly unharmed.

But then lilac fog erupted behind her like an alive shadow and towered her, slammed into the barrier like a dozen honed spears.

Azryle grunted and bent double, as if someone had punched him in the gut. Blood was now streaking his mouth, raced to his chin.

He swept to his knees as Deisn and the baeselk sacked the cave.