The First Sunlight.
Silence grows in his wake, thick with the smell of hay, oil, and old dust. My mind pulls back to Echo whether I want it to or not. I can sense her at the other end of the barn, a quiet star on the lower level. I look over the banister: someone’s given her a jacket, too big in the shoulders, swallowed sleeves. Jealousy spikes, that should be my jacket and I cut the thought off at the root. She’s mine. No. No. I’m not thinking like that. Then I see it: small flames dancing along her fingers, her hands skating heat up and down her bare thighs for warmth. She’s cold. Of course she’s cold. I watch the fire lick her skin without marking it, and a different kind of anger burns through me, the kind that comes with too many questions. What kind of witch is she? I’ve never seen one throw power without a word, without a sigil, without a tincture at the ready. When she burned the wolves, there was no chant, how could there be, with that mask cinched to her face? And she wasn’t hiding any potions in that tight little outfit that hugs every curve like a sin committed on purpose. I would have seen it. So how the hell is she doing that? The sight of her, cold, frail, hurt, and likely starving, eats at me. I check my watch again. Ten minutes until sunrise. Maybe I could hunt something for her myself, but how would she eat it with the mask on? I’ve already ordered that it stays. I’ve already told myself it stays. Just as I’m running the same circles in my head, Kaiden and Derick push through the curtain with a couple of dead rabbits swinging by their feet. The smell of fresh blood turns every head like we’re one animal, and for a moment I think I’ll have to kill half the room to keep them in line. They walk straight to Echo and offer the rabbits like a gift. I can’t see her smile, but I can feel it, and it is beautiful enough to be dangerous.
Kaiden pulls a knife, makes quick, clean work of the skins, and cuts small bites of fresh meat for her. Idiot. She can’t eat them, not like that and I’ve already commanded that no one removes her mask. Fuck. Maybe I should do it. Just for food. She is the key to our survival; I need her alive more than I need my pride. I keep watching. Echo cups the raw meat in her hands and lets the flames bloom in her palms, no chant, no tools, just heat answering her like it’s happy to see her. She hands the seared chunks back, and Kaiden sets them on a flat stone Derick has dragged in. He grinds the meat with another stone until it’s a gritty paste. The sun is rising now; even with heavy curtains on the walls, light leaks through the cracks like thin knives. It kisses my exposed hand and sizzles. I hiss and step deeper into the shadows, eyes never leaving them. Kaiden draws the warm mush into a large syringe and fits the tip to a pinhole I hadn’t noticed in the mask’s plating. He feeds her slow and steady, patient as a priest, and Echo swallows like a starving thing learning trust. Motherfucker. I turn away before I put my fist through the railing. Rage hammers through me, not just at Kaiden for caring for her, but at myself for letting it show that it should be me. Me easing the burn from her knees, me warming her, me putting food past the steel that muzzles her. I didn’t ask for this bond. I didn’t ask for a witch with a firestorm in her hands and a face I can’t stop imagining without bars.
Why was I cursed with such an enchanting witch as my beloved?
Jeremy.
I’m running full speed with Farah, my beloved. Wind shears past my ears, night air cold and thin in my lungs, gravel and scrub blurring to a gray smear beneath our feet. I can’t believe I’ve found her, and I haven’t had the chance to tell Nick yet, but I think he already knows. There’s too much happening with him, too much he’s trying not to feel about Echo, and I won’t rub joy in his face while he’s set against the bond that’s already hooked him. What does surprise me is the speed Farah keeps. Considering she’s been drained for years and only had a few mouthfuls of blood, she shouldn’t be this strong yet. But she is. Her fingers are laced in mine, cool and sure, and the rhythm of her stride matches mine like we’ve run together forever. The town rises ahead of us, low rooftops, a water tower, neon signs still sleeping. If we can just make it inside one building, shadow for her to feed in we’ll be fine. The horizon lifts from black to iron. Dawn. Heat prickles over my skin; steam threads from my forearms. Come on, run. We hit pavement, vault the curb. I yank open the diner door and haul us through just as the sun spills across the lot.
FUCK.
I spin, already braced to find ash where Farah stood an eye-blink ago, but she’s there. Whole. Wide-eyed. In a blade of sunlight angling through the glass, she lifts her hand, flexes her fingers, and stares. Her skin shimmers, not burning, like the light is laying down on her instead of trying to eat her alive.
“What the fuck?”
“I… uh…” Her voice is small with wonder, not fear.
The sunlight presses on me like hot sand; I retreat three steps, then five, until the corner booth gives me a pocket of shade. It’s still too bright, but I’m not smoking anymore. It’ll read as a bad sunburn until night drops and I knit.
“Farah.” I swallow. “You were in the sun.”
“Yeah…” She doesn’t look away from her hand. “I’ve never felt the sun before… Jeremy, it was amazing.”
“But how? How is that even possible?”
“Echo’s blood,” she says at once. “It must be. It tasted like pure heaven. Like nothing I’ve ever had. I thought maybe it was because I’ve been thirsty so long, but...” She presses a palm to her chest. “Something’s lingered. I feel different. Stronger. More alive.”
Alive. The word lands like a struck match. I glance at her mouth, at the corner where Echo’s blood dried in a thin, dark crescent. Maybe. Maybe.