She squeezed her eyes shut at a sudden pain behind her eyes, an ache, a pull. The artifact, calling her with precision.
Come to me.
Now wide awake, Ru crawled out of her bedroll, pulled on her boots and overcoat, and went into the forest.
CHAPTER 8
Ru’s teeth chattered. She ignored the chill seeping into her bones as she pushed through cold, wet undergrowth, pine needles and dead leaves crackling under her feet. It was easy to find her way — she only had to let the artifact lead her.
Its call was clear and relentless. As if a burning thread were attached to her mind and the artifact pulled at the other end, urging her deeper into the forest. She knew it was incredibly foolish to follow the call, but to resist would be painful. Even as she pushed her way through the freezing wet, the ache behind her eyes lessened. She had felt the same pull on the day she first saw the artifact, on her way to the dig site at the Shattered City.
She could not refuse it then, and though she wanted to, though sheknewbetter, she could not refuse it now.
And part of her was desperately curious to see where it led her. Would it be a living nightmare or a slow and gruesome death? She wasn’t moving toward the artifact itself; she couldn’t be. It was still with Lord D’Luc, safely in his pocket by the fire.
A vague thought fought its way to the forefront of her mind, her own logic — where was Lyr? Was he safe?
The thought fell away as quickly as it surfaced, the artifact’s presence expanding and pressing outward inside her skull likea dull roar. Ru persisted onward through the trees, sharp branches catching at her coat and loose hair, wetness seeping in through her boots.
With every step, the artifact filled her mind like thick syrup, sticking to her consciousness until she thought of nothing but the black stone and continuing forward. Soon, the pain in her toes subsided to numbness. Soon, she began to forget where she was and why she was so frightened.
Then she tripped, her boot catching on an exposed root, and she would have sprawled face first in the wet earth, except something caught her.
Someonecaught her. Strong arms, stopping her mid-fall and lifting her back to her feet, pulling her against his body. As the warmth of him extended to Ru, the artifact’s fervor burst forth a thousandfold. An inferno of hot want crackled through every cell of her in a sudden crescendo until she was overwhelmed with it.
She stepped back, moving away from the man who had caught her. It wasn’t Lyr. Of course, it wasn’t Lyr. She didn’t have to see his face to know, didn’t have to meet that gaze in the dark forest. The artifact knew. Her heart knew, had already known… might have known since the moment she’d woken up by the fire.
He was breathing hard, and she recognized the sound of his breaths, the soft exhale in the night.
It was Fen. No,Taryel.
“You,” Ru breathed, heart in her throat. She distantly felt as if she should be angry or afraid, but there was no fighting the artifact’s enticement, its neediness. Not that she wanted to fight it.
Touch him, it said. Her vision spun.
She moved forward without trying, her hands pressed against his chest, his cold leather.
She turned her face upward to meet his gaze. He was taller than she remembered, but the shape of him was so familiar. Broad-shouldered but slender, pale in the darkness, and framed by black hair, black leather. An angular stubbled jaw, intense grey eyes; every part of him was etched in her memory, a series of pathways in her mind, and every nerve in her body lit up for him. Every inch of her skin yearned for his touch.
“Ru,” he said, and his voice was low and rough.
Why should she not give in?
“Ru,” he said again, a curse and a prayer. And then, as if he, too, wondered the same —why not give in?— he took her face in his gloved hands, gently but with such determination, and kissed her.
He fit into the crevices of Ru’s isolation, filling her up until she burned with him.
If Ru had not been burning already, now the artifact’s fire consumed her. She was lost in it. She was lost inhim. He kissed her like a man given water after a journey through the desert. He kissed her as if she were the sun and he spun in her orbit. Teeth and tongue and caressing lips. Fervent hands on her face, in her hair.
Ru melted into him. She was coming home. This was where sheshouldbe. Hadn’t she been born for this very moment?
Yes, came the artifact’s response, flitting across her addled mind.
He pulled her closer, their bodies flush. And Ru couldn’t stop the ache that bloomed between her legs, the want that clawed its way through her.
She opened her mouth to say his name, but his mouth swallowed her words.
“I have you,” he said between kisses, whether as a warning or a comfort, she couldn’t tell. She didn’t care. Her fingers tangled in his hair, her breaths coming in short gasps.
