Page 40 of This Shattered Star

“May I take a closer look?”

“Kodhan Dreadmourne, asking for permission?” I drawled.

No answer. Just a deep frown, followed by a few impatient taps of his foot.

Sighing through my nostrils, I nodded. I hadn’t spied any poison glistening on any of the metal, but the possibility wasn’t completely ruled out.

Kodhan knelt, his fingers gentle as they prodded the skin around my wound.

My leg spasmed when his fingers drew too close to torn skin, but he gripped my knee with just enough firmness to keep it in place.

Goosebumps shot up the expanse of my leg.Just the pain, I surmised.

“It’ll scar, even with proper stitching and ointment for the burns. But it wasn’t deep enough to hit bone.”

He looked up at me with an intensity that I couldn’t read. At the sight of him, unguarded, kneeling at my feet with a gentle hand wrapped around my knee, an odd feeling cracked open an eye deep within my chest. Its interest stirred vibrations down my sternum. Like dipping a single finger into water, only to watch its surface ripple.

“It could’ve been far worse,” he added. His words sounded as though they’d been dragged through gravel.

Mine were barely above a whisper. “Yes, it could have.” His fingers tightened, just a fraction, around my knee. At the catch in my next breath, his gaze dropped, falling to my throat. Surely, he couldn’t see the way my pulse fluttered there. Instinctively, I reached up to cover it.

Kodhan shot to his feet, wiping his hands across his thighs to get my blood off his fingers. “I’m the one that pushed you. If I hadn’t, the beast would’ve done more damage than the blades.”

Thank you, I almost said. But I held the words back. He’d saved my life—twice. I refused to acknowledge it out loud. Refused to be indebted to him.

“It won’t happen again,” Brannon promised. And I wanted to believe it.

But much like Theia’s promises, his own could only mean so much when the only reason he made them at all—helped me at all—was for Kodhan’s benefit.

“I can get us across the gap.” He scanned the drop from over my shoulder. “You just need to get a running start.”

Every ounce of warmth leeched from my face.He wanted us to jump.

I toed the end of the platform, peering down below. Nothing poked out from the darkness. Not even a quiver of movement. Just an abyss waiting to swallow us whole.

“He won’t drop you,” Theia said confidently, reading into the fear written plainly across my features.

A cold sweat broke out along my palms. “We can find another way. There has to be another way.”

Kodhan lashed out, gripping the back of my collar so quickly I barely had the time to register what was happening. He forced me to tip forward, dangling my upper body over the abyssbelow us. Only his firm grip kept me from falling. That, and the trembling muscles of my core and legs.

Agony tore through me.My leg.The strain was excruciating.

Theia’s cry of outrage was twin to my own.

“Jump, or I let you fall.”

The crowd howled in delight.

Maverick had to stop him. Had to send some sort of magic to sweep me back onto the platform and push Kodhan off instead. He wouldn’t let Kodhan do this, wouldn’t let him sabotage his own ally. Any moment now, he was going to help me.

I took a few shaky breaths, wearily eyeing the inky darkness below, waiting.

Nothing happened.

No magic helped me back up. Not even a single shout echoed from Maverick. My back was to him, therefore I couldn’t see what expression he sported. But it didn’t matter. He’d chosen to donothing.

Rage bubbled in my chest. Ready to explode. “If you don’t let me go, I swear to every single star in the sky that I’ll gut you in your sleep and dump your corpse in the Phantom Rivers.”