Sadie

We navigated around each other the next few days in a wary dance, giving each other space. It wasn’t exactly friendly, but the tension between us seemed to ease like a fatigued muscle. I couldn’t hang on to that white-knuckled panic any longer. We were like two caged wild animals deciding to not kill each other. Begrudging allies at best. All I needed was to get out of there with my hands unbound and I’d be free. I’d find Maez and get the fuck out of the desert and back to the Golden Court. And if Navin was the ticket to that future, then so be it.

I was wandering aimlessly through a new part of the building when Navin turned the corner and startled, clearly surprised to find me there. My fingers traced over a mosaic of a bright green dragon, a juvleck in its talons. Navin paused and considered the mural beside me.

I thought about saying, “If only you had a dragon in the mines, maybe your father would still be alive.”

But I couldn’t summon the will to be that cold.

I was still furious at him, leaving him messes to clean and punishing him with my silence, but even I wasn’t that cruel. The silence was beginning to nag at me too, and I selfishly was considering breaking it just to have a conversation again. Besides, no amount of research in the library would give me all the answers that lay within Navin’s mind. Only he could recount what the past few years had been like.

And that was only if I could believe him.

“This is why I need us to go along with this plan,” he said.

“What?”

“This.”

He tipped his head to the mosaic. “No more monsters. No more sorcerers.”

He said it like a prayer he’d voiced a thousand times before.

“And how is me helping you going to do that?”

He paused as if calculating how exactly to explain and I wondered, too, if he was calculating how much to refrain from sharing. “Remember how I told you an eternal song was in a very hard to reach place?”

he asked. “Well, Rasil wants me to retrieve it for us.”

“The last thing the world needs is Rasil wielding a weapon like that,”

I said tightly. “Look what his grandfather did with that power.”

“Agreed.”

The speed with which he said that surprised me. He didn’t seem particularly fond of Rasil, but to be willing to go against the orders of the head of your pack—sect—whatever they called it, that was bold.

“Though as much as I don’t want Rasil to possess such a song,”

I continued, “I don’t know how I feel about it being in your possession, either.”

“I don’t plan on keeping it,”

he said. “It’s too dangerous.”

I stole a quick glance at Navin as he studied the dragon. “So what are you thinking?”

“I go to retrieve the eternal song under the guise of bringing it back to Rasil, and then we run and take it to Calla in Olmdere, hide it somewhere safe where no human nor Wolf is tempted to use it.”

I scrutinized him. “How do I know you’re not just saying this to convince me to help you?”

“You don’t,”

he said plainly. “But I know you would stop me if you thought I wasn’t keeping up my end of the deal.”

“I would.”

I folded my arms across my chest. “So this song is what’s in Rikesh? In King Luo’s possession?”

Navin nodded. “It’s carved on an ancient vase. The King believes it to be one of his many pretty relics and nothing more.”

“This vase is what Rasil wants you to trade me to Prince Tadei for?”

The look in Navin’s eyes told me everything. “Me in exchange for a song powerful enough to destroy the world. Wonderful.”

“It will only be for show,”

Navin pleaded. “I wouldn’t actually leave you there.”

“Oh no,”

I said sarcastically. “I can’t think of any way this half-baked plan could go awry.”

“Trust me—”

“But I don’t trust you!”

I erupted, taking a giant step away from him. Where was that kitchen knife when I needed it? “I don’t trust you one whit and you shouldn’t trust me, either. I’m still debating ripping out your throat with my teeth.”

His gaze darkened. “Is killing me the only way you’ll forgive me?”

That only enraged me further. “Perhaps.”

“Shift then.”

“What?”

“Shift,” he said.

I glared at him in disbelief for a second before finally realizing he was serious. I huffed a bitter laugh. Fine. If he wanted to play with fire, then I’d happily burn him to ash.

In a blink, my body started morphing, bones twisting and sinews snapping, fur sprouting and teeth elongating. The light fabric of my dress easily shredded around me, and I shook off the remnants, keeping my lupine eyes fixed on the human in front of me.

A low growl rumbled through my barrel chest, and I sniffed the air, taking in his scent of ink and resin-coated bowstrings. I would tear into him until he only smelled of the copper tang of blood.

My lips lifted, baring my teeth, and I stalked forward, hoping he’d run.

Instead, Navin yanked off his tunic, baring his vulnerable skin to me and dropping to his knees. “You are so beautiful,”

he whispered more to himself. “And powerful and terrifying and completely and utterly hypnotic. If anyone were to fell me, let it be you.”

I paused, one paw hovering above the tile floor as Navin spread his arms wide in surrender. The action felt so familiar, like a Wolf displaying their belly to their pack leader, his way of showing me that despite everything, I was still in control. It relieved me and irked me in equal measure. I thought he’d have more fight.

Foolish, foolish human.

I stalked closer, watching his neck pulsing with every beat of his racing heart. I bet even his blood tasted sweet, still laced with juice and bhavi rolls. I got close enough it would take nothing to reach out and lick off the sweat beading across his chest, his limbs shaking in fear. How easily I could snap his neck.

“Do it,”

he said as I flashed my glinting canines again.

I snapped at the air and Navin squeezed his eyes shut but neither did he run nor cower nor beg.

“I’d rather die with your jaws around my throat than have you hate me forever.”

I let out a disgusted huff. Killing him and hating him forever were not mutually exclusive. Mouth poised, maw open, I inched closer and his throat bobbed.

“But know this,”

he said, his voice growing deeper. “If you let me go now, I will never stop wanting you. I can’t. I won’t. Kill me now or I will keep fighting for this, for us. I’m yours, . I never lied about that.”

There it was—the fight—I needed and craved it, that duality of the soft and hard edges that melded into one. I needed the softest apologies and the fiercest promises and everything in between.

I froze, pulling my teeth away from his skin.

No. I didn’t need anything from him. I shouldn’t want him at all. Not after everything he’d done.

I didn’t know what this was—this spell he’d put on me, this magic he cursed me with. How could I tell what was even real anymore? But it didn’t matter, I knew, even without a monster lurking in the sand, I wouldn’t be able to kill him. His soul had its hooks in me. So I simply turned and prowled away, losing my resolve with every step to go on hating him forever.