Chapter 124 Hundred and twenty nine
“Ryder, move, they’re coming,” Sienna whispered, her breath quick and uneven as the distant clang of armored footsteps rolled across the burning city.
He pushed himself to his feet, still fighting the pain rippling through his body from their fall, though he tried to hide it behind that familiar stubborn silence. “I’m fine,” he muttered, even though he wasn’t even trying to stand straight.
“You’re lying.” She stepped toward him before she could stop herself, her hand rising instinctively as if it belonged to another woman entirely, one who hadn’t spent months forcing herself to stay away from him. “You’re barely steady.”
He caught her wrist, not with force but with a desperate gentleness that made her breath falter. “Don’t touch me unless you’re ready for everything that comes with it.”
Her eyes lifted to his, shaken by the quiet fire in them. “I’m not afraid of you.”
“You should be,” he said, his voice low, raw, filled with the weight of everything he’d been holding in. “Sienna, if you put your hands on me right now, I don’t know if I’ll have the strength to let you go again.”
The sounds of soldiers moved closer, the crack of burning arrows slicing through the air. The Citadel’s towers glowed red from fire, and smoke drifted like ghosts across the ruins. She could feel the heat of the flames on her back. The world was collapsing around them, yet all she saw was him.
“Let go of my wrist,” she whispered softly.
He hesitated.
“Ryder.”
Slowly, painfully, he released her. She didn’t step back. She didn’t give him space. She only squared her shoulders, lifted her chin, and spoke with quiet certainty. “We don’t have time to argue about fear or desire. We have to leave.”
He looked past her toward the ridge above the river, seeing the approaching shadows of Zane’s soldiers, their torches glowing like hungry eyes. “I know a way out,” he said. “There’s an old hunter’s path behind the ridge. It leads through the ash pines.”
“Then we take it,” she said, already moving.
But he grabbed her arm again, firmer this time, forcing her to look at him. “Sienna, listen.” His breath shook as he spoke. “Once we start running, there’s no going back. You understand that, don’t you?”
“I understand everything,” she said. “And I’m choosing you.”
The confession hung between them like the final breath before a kiss, before ruin, before salvation. His chest rose sharply, his eyes briefly closing as though those words reached a part of him he’d been shielding for years. “Then stay close,” he whispered. “If they touch you, I will lose control.”
“You won’t,” she said.
He didn’t answer, because the truth was too complicated to speak.
They ran.
The forest swallowed them quickly, branches tearing at their clothes as the moon broke through the smoke-filled sky in fractured beams of silver. Their footsteps sank into the soft soil, still warm from the embers drifting through the air. Sienna kept just half a step behind Ryder, hearing his breaths grow sharper, hearing the quiet growl rising beneath them. The curse was pushing at him, clawing at his restraint.
“Ryder,” she murmured as they passed beneath ancient pines, “say something. Anything.”
“Talking won’t help,” he said through clenched teeth.
“It will help me.”
He slowed, not stopping but allowing her to draw close enough that she could hear the tremor in his voice. “Sienna, every breath I take near you feels like it’s tearing me apart. My wolf doesn’t want to run. It wants to claim. It wants to bind. And the man in me wants, ” He stopped suddenly, chest rising and falling too fast.
She touched his back lightly, barely a whisper of her fingers. “What does the man in you want?”
His eyes closed tightly, as if the answer physically hurt him. “You know.”
“Say it.”
But he shook his head, stepping forward again as branches snapped behind them. “Later.”
“There might not be a later.”
“Then all the more reason to run.”
They pushed deeper into the forest, the smell of pine thickening around them as the shouts behind them grew louder. Riders thundered toward the river. Steel clashed. Wolves howled. The rebellion was breaking through every wall the Citadel had ever built.
Sienna’s breath hitched as they reached a steep incline. “They’re faster than I expected.”
“They’re not after us,” Ryder said. “They’re after you.”
“And you.”
He didn’t answer at first. The silence stretched until she grabbed his arm, forcing him to face her. “And you,” she repeated. “They want to destroy us both.”
Ryder’s jaw clenched. “No. They want to use me. They want to break you.”
She didn’t let go of him. “Then let’s make sure neither happens.”
For a moment, the world seemed to narrow to only that small space between them. Then an arrow slammed into the tree beside her head.
Ryder grabbed her waist, dragging her behind him as a second arrow flew, grazing his shoulder. His breath hissed through his teeth, but he didn’t slow. “Keep your head down,” he growled, pulling her into a sprint so fast her feet barely kept up.
“I’m not helpless,” she muttered sharply.
“No,” he said, pushing through the underbrush, “but you’re precious.”
The word hit her with more force than the arrows. “Ryder, ”
“Later,” he said again.
A burst of flames lit the forest behind them as the rebels’ torches ignited dry branches. The fire spread fast, racing through the pines, turning the night into a battlefield of crackling heat and falling embers. Smoke curled around them, thick, choking, wrapping around their bodies like grasping hands.
“This way,” Ryder said, pulling her toward a narrow break in the rocks that led to a hidden ravine. “It’s tight, but they won’t follow.”
“How do you know?”
He looked back at her with a ghost of a smile. “I used to hide here when I was a boy.”
She almost smiled, even through the fear. “Of course you did.”
He guided her inside, their bodies pressed close as they squeezed between the stones. The air was cooler here, the world quieter, as if the ravine itself swallowed sound. Once they reached the open space at the bottom, Ryder finally stopped.
Sienna leaned against the stone wall, catching her breath. “Ryder, your shoulder, ”
“It’s fine.”
“You’re bleeding.”
“I said it’s fine.”
She stepped toward him anyway, brushing her fingers close to the torn fabric where the arrow had grazed him. “You don’t have to pretend anymore,” she whispered. “Not with me.”
He caught her wrist again, but this time he didn’t push her away. He only held her there, breathing unevenly, the heat of his skin pulsing against her fingertips. “Sienna… don’t make this harder.”
“You’re making it harder by refusing to let me care.”
He finally met her gaze, and the rawness there almost brought her to her knees. “If I let you care, I won’t be able to walk away.”
“Then don’t.”
He shook his head. “You don’t understand. If I stay close to you… if I let myself want what I want… you will die.”
Her breath softened. “Or I might save you.”
“You can’t save me,” he said, voice breaking. “Sienna, I’m losing myself. The curse is, ”
A scream cut through the forest above them, followed by the thundering sound of boots sliding down the incline.
Ryder didn’t waste another second. “We have to move.”
He grabbed her hand, fingers locking with hers so tightly she felt the tremor running through him. They ran again, deeper into the ravine, following the ribbon of moonlight that barely touched the ground.
Behind them, soldiers shouted orders.
Ahead of them, the path narrowed.
Beside her, Ryder’s grip tightened with every step, not out of fear but out of something far more dangerous , the desperate need not to lose her again.
“Ryder,” she whispered, barely able to breathe as they squeezed between two massive boulders. “Where does this lead?”
“Somewhere safe.”
“Together?”
He didn’t answer.
Because they both knew the truth.
Nothing in their world was safe anymore.
Not even each other.
And as the shadows of the ravine shifted, as voices closed in from every direction, Ryder slowed, his body going still in a way that made the air itself hold its breath.
Because something , or someone , was waiting for them at the end of the path.
And he knew exactly who.