Page 13 of Bonded By Stone & Blood
His arm locks around my waist and the world snaps back into place with a jolt that drives all the air out of me. I am pressed against his chest, suspended two inches off the ledge, and the heat of him punches through every layer I'm wearing like the layers aren't there. He smells like granite split open for the first time. I can feel his breathing against my ribs.
He doesn't put me down. I tip my head back and look up. He is already looking at me.
The molten gold is contained, barely. His arm around my waist doesn't loosen by a single fraction and I'm suddenly, acutely aware that he is not holding me out of reflex anymore. That passed three seconds ago.
What's happening now defies the tidy categories I've used my whole life to keep myself safe, and my heartbeat is running fast and uneven for a woman who would very much like to find this situation entirely unwelcome.
His eyes drop, just briefly, to my mouth.
"Put me down," I say quietly. Almost respectfully, which is unlike me.
8
TOVIAN
Ismell Ice and rot and the unmistakable musk of the Cragborn clan bleeding through the cold. My stone skin has been itching for the better part of an hour.
Beside me on the high overlook, Vorgrym stands motionless as carved rock, one ruined eye fixed on the treeline below. Sabine stands on my other side, her wool coat whipping in the wind, her dark braid snapping across her shoulder. She's been quiet since we climbed up here.
Slowly, they emerge from the grey winter mist and the answer crawls up my spine like a blade.
Tharros.
He hasn't changed. He's larger than I remember, or perhaps it's just the arrogance that makes him seem it. Pale granite skin, broken horns catching the weak winter light, jagged wings held wide and loose like a creature who has never once feared the sky above him. His mouth is already curved into an excuse for a smile. Behind him, eight Cragborn warriors flank in tight formation, scarred and silent and watching.
He stops at the natural stone boundary where Ashwing rock meets open mountain.
He doesn't bow.
"Tovian." My name in his mouth sounds like an old joke reaching its punchline. "Still breathing. I'll admit, I wasn't certain."
"Tharros." I keep my voice flat. A blade held horizontal draws no blood. "You're standing on the edge of my territory."
"The edge," he repeats slowly, tilting his massive head like the word amuses him. "Yes. Still just the edge. Tell me, is that all you've managed to reclaim? In all this time?"
His gaze drags deliberately around the barren overlook, then slides sideways to Sabine. His expression sharpens. "Though I see you've been occupied."
Every muscle in my body coils at once.
"Watch yourself."
"A human. The great Ashwing Alpha. Centuries buried. Centuries sleeping. And when you finally claw your way back up into the light—" he spreads his dark leathery wings wide, a gesture of theatrical grief— "you chain yourself to a fragile, short-lived piece of flesh. One good winter and she'll be gone, Tovian. One hard fever. One bad fall."
His broken horns tilt toward me. "Has the Stone Sleep eaten your mind, or were you always this soft?"
The ground beneath my talons cracks.
A hairline fracture. I feel it split under my weight before I consciously register that my grip has tightened, that my wings have shifted, that every predator instinct I own is coiling like a spring pulled too far. I breathe through the surge. I hold it.
Eight warriors behind him. My clan is barely breathing. The hatchlings are still sleeping.
Not yet.
"You rode four days through winter mountain passes," I say, "to ask me about my personal life."
Tharros's smile widens, and the darkness behind his teeth makes me want to pull his wings apart. "I came to see what was worth fighting for."
His gaze returns to Sabine. Lingers. "Less than I expected."
