Page 41 of May: Bloom & Bane

He clicks his tongue. “Why does he leave you… exposed?”

“He’s protecting me,” I snap.

“Is he?” The bell-headed one interjects. “Every second he does not tie you to his own immortality leaves a path open for… creatures like us.”

“He’s not a creature like you, so I assume he doesn’t think like one.”

“If I were him,” he rasps, “and I finally had my mate in my arms… I would not have let the sun set before I made it impossible for anyone to take her.”

A low, trembling sound comes from the left.

A second form is hunched over, his ribs visible through his skin. His hands shake as he clutches his own stomach.

He looks as though he hasn’t slept or eaten in thousands of years. Antlers jut from his skull, gnarled and twisted toward the night sky.

“Please,” he whispers. “If he just finishes this… the door opens for one of us.”

He isn’t like the other two.

“I-I can’t stop the hunger, Eden.” His large, gaunt frame shivers. “Please tell him to seal the bond.”

It’s the most heartbreaking thing I’ve ever heard. He isn’t threatening to eat me because of his hunger; he’s begging me to help him stop starving.

“Quiet.”

The antlered figure flinches and goes silent.

I follow their gaze.

Mounted on a horse made of midnight is a man with no head. His hands hold the reins with absolute authority.

“We do notwant to hurt you, Eden.” The bronze colossus steps closer. “We just want our mates. And yours is standing in the way of that.”

The bone-beaked figure slides closer until the scent of myrrh and old parchment floods my nose.

“He said he’d keep you safe, didn’t he, ílyara?” he purrs. “Is it because he wants to protect you? Or because he knows that once the bond is complete, you’ll see exactly what kind of monster he was?”

“Do not call me that!” My heart stutters. “H-he doesn’t remember his past.”

“Ah,” he hums thoughtfully. “The soul doesn’t so easily forget.” He leans in until the tip of his beak brushes my hair. “I don’t know if I could deny something that smelled as good as you.”

The ground beneath us heaves.

A massive root, bristling with gleaming black thorns, erupts from the earth between me and the figures. It lashes out like a whip, forcing two of them back.

“GET. AWAY. FROM. HER.” Sage’s voice shakes the meadow, and everything around us begins to rot.

For a split second, I don’t recognize the man standing there. His face steals my breath. The gentle face that watched over me for three hundred and sixty-seven days is gone. The skin on the left side is gone, revealing the smooth, polished bone of a skull. His gold eye is missing, leaving an empty, shadow-filled socket.

A single vine of ivy snakes out and wraps around my waist with the gentleness of a silk ribbon.

It smells like Sage… and something new.

The vine pulls me backward until I’m flush against his side.

I’ve never felt more relieved to be in his arms.

“I heard you were coming,” Sage bellows. “I just thought you’d be men enough to come for me, and not my tiny, human mate.” He glances at each one of them. “That… was a mistake.”