Page 19 of Ashborne: Defiance

When he ran from me, I was heartbroken. Embarrassed. Confused. I started after him, the words on my tongue to plead that he tell me what had frightened him. Why he ran from me. From this. But the answers swam to mind very quickly.

This was what men did, when faced with me.

He didn’t want me. Couldn’t fathom it, apparently.

And at that thought, something in my heart shrieked, and died.

Fighting tears, I tried to walk away, back to the castle, though it would take hours. But within mere steps, the tug deep in my chest made me groan and stumble back around, in the direction Vane had run.

He’d sprinted. Out of sight in seconds. But I felt him like he’d tied a leash to my heart and now dragged me through the trees. I couldn’t possibly keep up, but I could follow. Had to follow.

My soul demanded it.

Around and around… was he aware that he ran in a circle? For an hour. More. I was exhausted, yet, I only walked. He ran until he must be on the verge of collapse.

I existed in two minds—one focused only on finding him. On needing him. The other, disoriented and spluttering. Had I been drugged? Magiked? How was it possible that I sensed him so clearly, and yet couldn’t control my own limbs?

I followed, stumbling, weeping, throat raw, until, well after the forest had grown dark and the only light was moonlight filtered by the trees overhead, his direction stopped changing. The dragons’ calls rose in the distance, their images and sensations came in waves that made my body hot, and my knees weak. They made me need him urgently.

I didn’t know how far away he was, but I knew precisely which direction in which to move to find him. And so, I stumbled on, heart aching, lips numb, mind reeling. Until, between one step and the next, the trees opened and there he was.

Vane sat in the shadow of a thick tree, almost hidden by a thick branch, half-broken from the trunk, that skewed drunkenly toward the ground, its leafy tips peppering the line of sight between us.

My heart ached. He’d sat at the base of the trunk, knees pulled up, elbows resting on them, his head low and fingers clawed into his hair. Every line of every limb, taut, and rigid.

He looked tormented.

He looked like I felt, and my heart went out to him. I whispered his name and hurried forward on tottering, shaky legs, my heart leaping—then a twig snapped under my boot, his head whipped up, and our eyes met.

I stopped dead, still some space away. But drinking in the sight of him. Something inside me swelled, pleading for him. But his eyes went round. Hunted.

“How the—” he cut himself off, shoving to his feet and backing away, only to come up hard against the tree behind him.

“I won’t hurt you—”

“How the fuck did you get close without me hearing you?!” His voice was hoarse. Cracking like a boy just becoming a man.

“I don’t know, I just—”

“Get away from me!”

“Vane, please—” I sobbed as that hollow in my chest that had been driving me toward him, the spot that pulled, jerked so sharply it stole my breath.

“Don’t touch me.”

“I’m not.” Though I drew closer to him, unable to resist that desperate tug within.

“Get the fuck away from me, Grace!”

“Why?!” I shrieked, stumbling to a halt just out of his reach, sight blurring with tears. “What did I do?! Why do you despise me?! I’d never hurt you—I want you!”

I reached for him, intending to beg, desperate to show him I meant him no harm. But my fingertips barely brushed his chest when the world flipped.

A snarled curse.

A singing pain in my shoulder.

Darkness whirling too fast for sight.