Daivad became aware that he was taking a full, deep breath of the most intoxicating scent before any other thought crossed his consciousness. The subtly sweet smell of honeysuckle and warm skin that called up memories he hadn’t made yet. But that was only the foremost aspect of the scent, the part anyone could catch if they leaned in close—what made a scent so delicious that it could seize the mind and take it to another time, another place were the little micro-scents that filled it out, gave it dimension and depth. The underlying spice of adrenaline, the full flavor of certain hormones and pheromones, the edge of emotion scents, even the complex mixture of a person’s magic—all these layers that made a person’s smell so profoundly unique. Those elements only Inhumans could really taste and name.

Daivad had never been so glad to be Inhuman.

Voices bubbled up in his consciousness next, raised and tense.

“—Could have killed him!”

“—Fist wore no magic—”

An animalistic snarling followed by a deep, soothing voice.

Then sensations—his head being laid on something soft, a dull ache over his entire body with sharp concentrations of pain in various areas, but most of all a pounding in his head. And then the scent shifted, took on a taste of magic and the pain in his head eased.

His final realization before breaking the surface of consciousness was that of the rumbling purr in his own chest.

“—Have to leave before the Guard heads out at dawn!”

“You can’t name the blame for his glass cheek Mine. And you know he deserved it!”

Daivad peeled his eyelids open and Nyxabella’s face swam above him, sliding in and out of focus, her fingers floating between them, tracing her strange, formless runes. She shot a look over her shoulder at Jac, but didn’t argue further. Then she turned back to him.

Daivad had many feelings running through him at the sight of her, the smell of her, the feel of her magic, the very pressure of her nearness, drawing goosebumps from him for the second time that night. So many feelings, and not a single thought. He kept his mouth very tightly shut, terrified of what words might spill from it if he didn’t.

Involuntarily, he took another deep, head-spinning inhale, and her scent replaced the ache in his body with a pleasant buzzing. He had never smelled anything as good as her. Mother Dark, he hoped that her ability to read magic didn’t mean she could read minds.

“Good,” she said softly. “Slow, deep breaths.”

He was happy to oblige.

From his angle below her, the wisps of curls that had escaped her braid twined with the stars in the slowly-lightening sky above, making her look like she wore a halo of stars. A blush had bloomed across her nose and cheeks, at the slope of her shoulders, and across her full, freckled chest and he imagined that if he reached up and touched her skin it would be burning warm. The thought sent a thrill through him. He quickly retrained his gaze on her face.

She paused in her rune tracing to hold two fingers before his face. “Name the number.”

“Two,” he grunted. When her fingers slid back out of focus, he added, “Most of the time.”

Her lips, so pink and soft-looking, pulled to the side in a tiny smirk and a pride he did not want to admit to bloomed in his belly—and then he remembered. Her laugh from earlier, so full and sudden that it made her snort. At something he had said. He did that. And he wanted to do it again.

“Lie still,” she said, her tone gentle, before she called to Jac, “You have the med bag?”

Jac stomped over the uneven ground to begrudgingly pass the bag off, but when she started to stomp off again, Nyxabella called her back. She grabbed what she needed from the bag and returned the rest to Jac, in case Ben needed any of it. Daivad was vaguely aware of Ben’s protests that he was fine, and Jac telling him she would sit him down if he didn’t do it himself. Then Maxea, snarling at Jac until—

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

“Max,” he said, calm but firm, and the snarl simmered to a growl. His Wolf trotted over to him, showing Jac her teeth the whole way.

Nyxabella had smoothed and shaped the broken earth beneath him into a reclined chair of sorts, propping his head and feet up slightly, and she’d put his own filthy cloak behind his head as a pillow. Maxea butted her big, black head in between him and Nyxabella, sniffing at him before Daivad snapped his fingers and waved her back. She trotted around directly across from Nyxabella, sat, and stared her down. Nyxabella just smiled at Max, and readied her supplies.

For the first time all night, he looked down at himself and saw the shape he was in. He looked only slightly better than Kure did about now. He could feel how swollen his face was, and his entire back must be black and blue from the times Kure had thrown him. A great gash ran down his right side from ribs to hipbone, bleeding steadily, a bullet still lodged in his thigh, and the way his ribcage screamed with each greedy, full breath almost certainly named a few of his ribs Cracked, at least. Then there were the million smaller cuts and scrapes from his scalp to the very bottoms of his feet. This wasn’t exactly how he’d hoped to appear when he saw her again.

But then again, it did earn him her full attention. She was so close. She set to work with her medical supplies—bandages, a potion, a bottle of alcohol, a handful of medicinal leaves she would no doubt try to get him to chew on. He was as fascinated and frustrated watching her movements now as he had been the first time he’d seen her, in Ike’s Tavern. The grace that guided even her simplest movements, the weightless way she held herself over him…

She passed him the potion, instructing him to take half now, and the rest in a few hours—but she wouldn’t meet his eye, instead focusing on the worst of his wounds, the gash on his side.

She was still angry. Of course she was—why wouldn’t she be?

Daivad wanted to grab his own head and shake it hard, much as it would hurt, jarring loose all the words he knew in the hopes he’d be able to find the right ones, and quickly. The sky had taken on a silvery shade. He didn’t have long. The only words he could seem to hold on to were honeysuckle and skin.

Quietly, she uncorked the alcohol and said, “What happened at Haven?”

He felt like he’d missed a step going down stairs. With a jolt, he realized that, if he had the time, he really would have told her.

“That story runs a little long—I don’t think it could beat the dawn.”

“What, you can’t be concise?”

When she finally met his gaze, there was a mischievous twinkle in her eye.

Mother damn it. It was fucking embarrassing the way his mood lifted. The way his empty head was suddenly full of warm fluff and his chest felt light.

He heard himself saying, “The concise answer is insufficient.”

The muscles in her soft jaw flexed and once again those sweet-looking lips pulled to one side, clearly fighting to keep a smile off her face as he used her own words on her. “Another time then.”

Another time. He told himself it was just the potion making him buzz like this.

But then she looked down, and a weight settled over her features. All hint of smile slipped away and she resumed her work.

It’s rare I read a man so wrong

“I gave orders,” he blurted suddenly enough that she splashed more alcohol than she’d meant on his wound, and his side lit up with pain like she’d set it on fire, “for her grave not to be disturbed.”

Nyxabella froze, alcohol in hand, and he heard her already-quickened heartbeat pound faster. A scent that had been bubbling beneath the surface surged to the forefront—a simple, cold scent that evoked imagery he couldn’t place, of cracked ice and freezing water and utter silence. Grief. Her chin puckered and her eyes shone, but she said,

“Thank you.”

Several agonizing seconds dragged across his flesh, a thousand times worse than anything Kure had dealt him. She blinked back tears while she cleaned the wound, and he absolutely, completely could not stand it. Sitting here, letting her tremble and ache while she tended to him, her soft fingertips like live-wires every time they touched his skin.

She was halfway through sealing the wound with bits of fleshtape when again words were barging through his lips, surprising them both. “I’m sorry.”

Nyxabella once again stilled, keeping her gaze on her hands, hovering inches from his side. Her pulse stuttered.

The words wouldn’t stop, but now they were tripping over each other on the way past his lips. “I shouldn’t’ve—the party—responsibility’s mine but I … I know she was just scared.”

Nyxabella looked at him—and stared. That great, cold grief scent washed off her, dousing him in freezing water, but there was something else in the scent too, something alive and warm, floating slowly toward the surface. He made himself hold her gaze, fighting every instinct in his body that screamed for him to turn away, to tell her he could patch himself up, to get back on his torn feet and run. Panic burned up his throat like bile and it felt like forever that he sat there, dying. Burning from the inside out. He would take Kure over this any day.

But then she smiled. And it was like dawn breaking.