Page 16 of The Cost of Blood and Bonds

Something pulls in my chest. Something I can’t name and don’t like not understanding.

My eyes track her automatically, following those pointed ears bobbing through the crowd, and then⁠—

Gone. Just like that.

My chest locks up, which is stupid. I don’t even know her name, but the thought of losing her in this chaos has me shifting forward in the booth.

Finally, I spot her⁠—

Relief hits harder than it has any right to.

She has reappeared at the far end of the bar and claimed a stool in the most out-of-the-way corner of the room. It doesn’t make sense. Women who look like her don’t hide. They let the room orbit them.

The bartender clocks her immediately, leaves a line three-deep without hesitation, and walks straight to her. He leans in, like the rest of the room doesn’t exist.

I know that move. I’ve used that move.

My jaw grinds before I realize it.

Of course, she knows him; that explains the corner. The way she’s settled in like it was hers to claim.

He smiles and she leans closer.

Fuck.

I don’t like the way that lands. Don’t like the heat curling low in my chest, dark and possessive and completely unearned.

I don’t even know her.

She laughs at something he says, soft and easy.

The feeling in my chest tightens.

Then she stands. I stop pretending to be interested in anything else as she moves away from the bar and toward a table of guards. Low-level from the look of it, with cheap leathers, the kind who scrape enough coin together for one good night and regret it in the morning.

She slides into conversation like she belongs there, too, but she’s different now, lighter, almost shy. Something about it doesn’t add up.

I’m done watching. It’s time to meet my little fox.

I push off the booth⁠—

“Hey.”

Finn’s hand clamps onto my shoulder, and I stop, dragging my attention back to the booth.

He’s mid-story, been going for a while from the look of it, and I haven’t heard a single word. “So we’re posted near the outer gates, with the crowds going feral, everyone thinking they can sneak closer to the Woods⁠—”

I blink. The booth’s watching me now, expectant and smiling like I owe them something.

“Yeah,” I say, because that’s easier than thinking. “Trials.”

My eyes slide past them without permission, back to the corner, back to my fox.

She’s not there. Fuck.

I scan the bar, quick and sharp. There—a flash of fur, her fox tail, slipping through the door like she was never really here at all.

I’m already standing. I clap Finn on the back, hard enough to count as an apology. “Next round’s on me.”