Page 35 of On Burning Paths

I turn my head, finding his mouth again, and kiss him deeper this time, my hands moving over his chest, tracing the shape of him, learning him. I feel him draw in a slow breath through his nose—controlled, deliberate, the breath of a man working to hold himself in check.

He hooks a hand behind my knee and draws my leg up, and when our bodies press together fully I feel how much he wants this, and the knowledge of it turns my thoughts to nothing useful for several seconds. I press closer, curious and flushed all the way to my fingertips, and he lets out a sound from the back of his throat that is low and wanting and thoroughly undone, and it sinks directly into my bones.

His mouth drifts from my neck to my collarbone, his hand moving carefully over my braid, like even now he's being deliberate about what he touches. When his hand moves to my chest and his palm presses warm against me through the fabric, stars burst behind my eyes and I moan softly against his mouth before I can stop myself. His hands rub over the leather fabric, the friction making my nipples hard, and I suck in a shaky breath.

He goes still for just a moment, then kisses my lips again, his hand drifting lower, fingers tracing the hem of my skirt, sliding up beneath it to the waist of my trousers. When he hooks a single finger in the waistband and draws it down slightly, reality surfaces through the warmth of it.

I've never done anything like this.

And as much as I want this, want him, I don't want it here, against the side of a tree, in the open, for the first time.

"Sorry," I whisper, catching his wrist and stilling his hand. I'm breathing hard, my chest rising and falling like I've been running. "I'm not ready for—I haven't⁠—"

"You have nothing to apologize for. Besides, this isn’t safe… I shouldn’t have…" he says, and his voice is rough at the edges, his pupils dark and blown as he looks down at me, visibly working to steady himself. There's no frustration in his face, nothing that looks like disappointment aimed at me, only the careful effort of a man pulling himself back from something he very much wanted to continue.

He doesn't step away. He doesn't leave me cold. He drops his forehead to my shoulder and breathes there for a moment, his hand moving from my hip to rest at my waist, settling there instead of claiming me.

"You are—" he starts, and doesn't finish. He presses a kiss to my shoulder instead, then straightens and presses another to my forehead, slow and deliberate.

I am still throbbing with want, my whole body sensitive and aching in a way that makes it very difficult to think clearly. I wonder, briefly, if I made a mistake.

I don't think I did. But I feel the loss of it keenly.

"Come on." Thorian scrubs a hand through his hair and looks at me with something that isn't quite a smile but is the closest he gets, though something still moves behind his eyes, something he's working through. He sighs, leans down to collect the firewood, and loops his free arm around my shoulders. "We should finish collecting the wood before nightfall."

"Agreed," I say, taking a few pieces to carry myself. "We should."

And as we go, being practical and smart, I kind of wish I hadn’t been. I kind of wish I’d waited to see what he was going to do to me. After all, I don’t even know if tomorrow is guaranteed in the Trials.

11

Nyx

“I have to say, this is my favorite flavor of forest so far,” Talon says, tipping his head up and looking at the trees that tower far above us.

This morning, when we packed up our campsite and left that little cave behind, the forest quickly shifted, the trees getting taller and wider until some of them were so large you couldn’t take them in all at once.

It makes the world feel impossibly huge, and even Thorian looks like a doll amidst them. Their foliage shades the forest floor from the sun, which attempts to blaze down angrily on us overhead.

“Sequoias,” Fenric breathes, running his hand over one of the trunks. “I’ve read about them before, but they’re not native where I’m from. They’re breath-taking.”

“Have the two of you bullied him sufficiently about this whole…thing?” Talon asks, circling his finger and gesturing to all of Fenric, who returns a foul gesture, which makes me laugh.

“Only Thorian has,” I say, to which Thorian protests, until I remind him of calling Fenric a nerd before, when he was first telling us about the plants.

“Okay, fine,” Thorian grumbles. “But it clearly wasn’t enough, or he would have stopped.”

Fenric gently smacks the side of the tree. “How could any man be embarrassed about being good with plants? That’s like being embarrassed about being good with a sword. Real men love plants.”

“Real men love plants,” Talon mocks quietly.

I give Talon a look, but he doesn’t stop grinning.

“Hey, I like it, Fenric,” I say, tucking my hand into his arm and giving him a quick kiss on the cheek, which quickly brings a flush to his face. “There’s nothing hotter than being smart.”

“You like this plant shit? I’ll tell you all about them, sweetheart,” Talon says, dancing ahead of us and walking backward, smirking. “If that means I’ll get a kiss, too.”

“No kisses for bullies,” I tease, heart fluttering.