Sadie

We rode out with the dawn on a single dappled tan mare. My hands were once again bound behind my back as Rasil watched us leave. Navin’s arms circled around me, keeping me from sliding off the horse’s neck. I gripped the mare tightly with my thighs, wishing I had my hands free to hold on to her mane. At least my legs had been unchained, and they’d permitted me to wear some flimsy old breeches; otherwise the sores and chafing would’ve been unfathomable, even knowing I’d be able to shift once we’d put some distance between us and the refuge. Still, riding with bound hands was an exercise of misery.

“Just one more dune.”

Navin’s warm breath skimmed the shell of my ear. “And then we’ll be able to relax.”

I kept having the urge to look back, but I knew we’d find no sign of the Songkeepers’ sanctuary, only the slightest bend in the air where the glamour started, hidden amongst the waving heat lines.

I wore a bone-white scarf that wrapped around my nose and head, keeping the sunlight from burning my skin—Navin had convinced Rasil that no one wanted a red and peeling betrothed, and even then the asshole had barely relented. Meanwhile, Navin wore a chestnut, wide-brimmed hat that made him look more like a roguish pirate than a musician. I had zero qualms with that outfit, nor the way he roughly handled me onto the horse in front of Rasil. It felt good not always being the domineering one for once. I’d always been the instigator and commander of all my past trysts. I never thought it could be like this with anyone nor that I’d enjoy it, let alone with a human. And esh, this human, with his long fingers, and plundering tongue, and giant c—

I adjusted my seat and rolled my shoulders.

“Soon,”

Navin promised, mistaking my arousal for discomfort.

I cleared my throat but held my tongue. I didn’t want to use it for speaking anyway—

Get it together, !

Soon, we wouldn’t have to play this game anymore. Soon, we’d both be free. Maybe we could live in the Olmderian capital, or travel in the wagon, or just find some way to be together. Even if it didn’t make any sense to either of us, maybe we could figure it out. I didn’t know how but felt determined to try. Navin with his songs, me with my general propensity for debauchery—maybe we could carve out a place in the world that finally felt right.

Navin pulled on the horse’s reins, slowing the mare to a stop. He pulled the keys from his saddlebag and unlocked my cuffs. I groaned as I pulled my hands in front of me and stretched my arms out. I rubbed my red, raw wrists.

“You could shift here,”

Navin offered. “Heal those bruises. No one will see.”

“Except for your horse,”

I replied, patting the mare on her neck. “Who will definitely bolt off into the desert if she sees me.” Sweat beaded on my brow and I blotted it with my scarf. “The Wolves’ horses are trained extensively in Damrienn to not spook when they see one of us. I’m guessing the Songkeepers didn’t prepare their horses for an enemy that looks like me.” Navin sucked on his teeth at the word “enemy,” and I’ll admit to some frustration at that. Clearly, he wanted to forget all that it meant for him to be a human and me a Wolf. “Besides,” I added, “the bruises and shackle marks will make our act more compelling. It worked on Rasil, after all.”

Navin let out an unimpressed grunt and tightened one arm around me as he dropped the metal cuffs into his saddlebag. “I hate that I put them there.”

“You put them there because I asked you to—and because I let you. And that’s only after I screamed in your face and demanded that you do so,”

I chided. “Honestly, seeing me for five minutes in the sparring rings of Highwick would absolve you of your guilt. I don’t mind a few hard-won bruises. Thank you for sparing me from having to smash my face into the wall or something.”

“Even for a Wolf,”

he said with admiration, “you’re the toughest person I know, recklessly so sometimes.” By sometimes, we both knew he meant most of the time. “If we pass anyone on the road to Sankai-ed, just put your hands behind your back. If Galen den’ Mora is still there, we won’t need these.” He tapped the saddlebag and it rattled. “But if we can’t locate it straightaway, we’ll find an inn and I’ll put the cuffs back on until we get to our room.”

Our room. I liked the sound of that. But instead, I nodded and said, “I hope Maez is still there.”

“I hope she wasn’t foolish enough to head to Rikesh without us.”

“Have you met her?”

I let out a derisive snort. “Without her mate around to temper her, our only hope is that she is still mourning us at the bottom of a wine barrel.”

Navin’s hand splayed across my belly, rising until his thumb skimmed the underside of my breast. A cough of surprise hacked out of my throat.

“Navin,”

I warned as his hand tugged up my grimy shirt and dipped under the fabric to slide up the same trail along my bare skin. “If you keep doing what you’re doing, we’re going to die of sun sickness fucking on the burning sand.”

His laughter was a hot tickle in my ear. “That would certainly be a way to go.”

His hand rose higher to skim over my breast, my nipple hardening to his touch before he let out a frustrated grumble and pulled his hand away, taking the reins again. “Why must you be right this time?”

“I’m right all the time.”

He chuckled, even as I felt him hard against my backside, and wondered if my hands were still bound what mischief they’d be making right now. Instead, I rubbed my hands down my sore thighs, knowing if I touched him now we’d both be doomed by our lust.

We rose up to the top of the next sand dune and finally spotted where the road to Sankai-ed joined the land. The onyx stones of the mountain glinted in the sunlight, casting rainbow spectrums onto the sand below. A donkey and cart ambled halfway up the road to the island, moving slowly up the rickety rope bridge.

Our horse kept her slow, steady pace as the sun lifted higher in the sky and the heat became scorching. I fanned out the sweaty shirt I wore, every point where Navin and I pressed together now slick with sweat. The constant wet rubbing chapped my skin and I found myself leaning forward, practically draping myself down the mare’s neck to avoid the friction.

The heat baked us as the mare clip-clopped the first steps up the rope bridge into the cloudless sky. I yearned to whip the sweaty shirt off and just ride naked, but I knew the blistering sun would flay my skin off before we got to the tented shelters of Sankai-ed.

A sudden breeze picked up and I straightened, fear gripping me as I remembered plummeting from this road only a few days ago.

Navin’s hand dropped to my hip and squeezed. “After the rains of Rahm, there will be no sandstorms for many moons,”

he assured me. “We are safe. Well . . .” He amended, “Safe as we can be on a mission like this.”

“A mission I still think makes no sense. We will be losing the Onyx Wolves as an ally if I pull out of this marriage,”

I said, reveling in the breeze that tousled my hair. Each step higher into the air, the cooler we became, our sweaty clothes filling with wind like sails on a ship.

“I think you already lost them as an ally when King Nero offered you to Luo as a trade,”

Navin said bitterly. “But you rebuffing Prince Tadei will reflect badly on the Silver Wolf pack, too. They promised they could control you, and you are showing the Onyx pack that you are not owned by anyone.”

I scowled. “And I’m not showing that by having you, a human, deliver me to them in chains?”

“It is a helpful deception. They will underestimate you at their own peril,”

he replied. “And make it all the easier for us to escape.”

My shoulders tensed, my fingers curling in the breeze. “And what happens if we can’t escape?”

Navin’s arms tightened around me. “I will get you out,”

he said. “I promise I won’t leave you there. I won’t leave you,” he murmured.

“You left me once,”

I whispered.

“And I regretted every day after the battle of Olmdere that I didn’t turn back and make things right with you. I thought you’d never hear me out, and yet I should’ve stayed anyway, should’ve fought. I won’t make that mistake again, love. Not now that I know what we mean to each other.”

One of Navin’s hands dropped to my thigh, reminding me of the way he grabbed me the night before.

Desire bloomed in my core at the memory, but I pushed it aside once more, focusing on the ever-dwindling horizon below us. “You and I always felt impossible, nonsensical even, and yet somehow inescapable, too.”

“Exactly.”

Navin dropped a kiss to the nape of my neck. “I knew somewhere deep in my soul that I loved you from the very first moment our eyes met in Nesra’s Pass.” His voice flushed with mirth as he added, “When you helped me bury those bodies.”

“A morbid way to first fall for one another,”

I countered with a laugh. “Fitting in hindsight, I suppose. I thought falling for you would mean softer, sweeter things, things I didn’t understand nor want. My life is dark and difficult.”

“As is mine,”

Navin said.

I leaned into him in silent recognition. Knowing that truth changed things. Knowing that he walked as difficult a path as me made it easier to grapple with my feelings. Just knowing him, at least so much more than I did when he was lying to me, made all the difference. “Human or no,”

I murmured, “you and I are made of the same mettle. Even if my fur is different from your skin, you and I reflect each other in a way I never knew possible.”

Navin didn’t reply, only brushed another kiss to my neck. He lifted his head again, the mountain of Sankai-ed becoming clearer and more detailed with every breath. I wondered if some small part of him still held back from the truth of what I was. He said he was awed by my Wolf form, but . . . I still couldn’t help but feel like he wished I was something else. How much easier our lives would be if that was true. I didn’t dare scrutinize that seed of doubt further. I knew I wanted him and for now that would have to be enough. Whatever beasts lay ahead—human, Wolf, and monster alike—I wanted him there by my side, humming a tune meant only for my soul to hear.