Page 58 of Our Covenant

Thorne pulls the door closed behind him and steps around my failed blockade. He’s breathing heavily but he hasn’t broken a sweat yet. I watch him stride deeper into the barn. My biggest advantage is extinguished when a large, beautiful flame gathers at his fingertips. He holds it above his head like a torch as he pans around him.

“Come on out, Elsbeth,” he says far too easily. “You and I have a lot to talk about.”

He must think I’m an idiot. As if I’d give away my position that easily.

“I’ll even give this back.” He holds up my locket. The gold chain dangles from his middle finger, and the fire in his other hand makes the delicate rings gleam. “I’ve missed seeing it on that pretty neck of yours.”

I might strangle him with it if he keeps baiting me. But despite the urge in my gut to hurl myself out of my straw blanket and rip him apart, I stay put. My hands dig deeper into the compacted hay. The layers smell a bit like mold the more I push aside, but I find what I’m hoping for. I pull up the small stone that’s likely been slumbering here for decades and toss it across the barn into the corner, near a wood and iron graveyard.

Thorne’s head whips around at the ting of stone on metal, but then he focuses back up at the loft. A grin slowly spreads over his lips and my stomach drops.

Fuck.

He can’t see me yet, but I’ve given away my vantage point. The cocky bastard tucks my locket back into his pocket, strides over to the ladder, and starts to ascend agonizingly slowly, one rung at a time. My breath quickens with every bit of distance he claims between us. I peek over the side of the loft at the long way down and weigh whether breaking my leg would be worth the jump. It wouldn’t.

Thorne is getting closer, and unless I think of something quick, he’ll find me any moment. I pan around the exposed layer of hay. There is a pitchfork sticking up out of a stack in the far corner, but I would have to fully expose myself to get to it and he would surely catch me before I got even halfway.

He takes another few tentative steps closer. Is he worried he’s going to fall through?

I take one last look around us and finally find what I need. About three feet from the edge of the loft is a hook holding a bucket on a pulley. The rope is taut so it has to be attached to something down below. But will it be heavy enough to slow my fall? Or will it leave me stranded midair like an apple just out of reach for him to pick?

Only one way to find out.

“Was any of it real?” he asks, breaking the silence and causing me to pause. “Or was it all a lie to put me under your spell?”

I can hear the sincerity in his tone. It’s not playful or angry but not pathetic either. Did he hear Maddox’s accusations in the kitchen? Is that why he came to find us?

Ignoring him, my muscles drawing tight, I prepare to launch myself across the open space and hope that I’ve calculated the distance right. Thorne’s next footstep is too close, and just as I push my body over the edge, I feel his fingertips brush over my back.

Time slows as my arms reach for the lifeline. The force of gravity and physics shoots me toward my target, but something else ripples through the air and guides my fingers onto the rim of the bucket. I lock onto it just as my body starts to fall. My legs instinctually kick out and I sway back and forth, gently spinning until I can see Thorne’s bewildered face.

“Hold on,” he calls, holding his hands out as if he’s trying to calm the air around us. “I’ll get you⁠—”

My stomach drops as the rope above my head unravels. The force of gravity on my lungs steals my air before I can scream. Reality slows as my body and brain strain to grasp what’s happening, but my muscles brace for an impact that doesn’t come. Thorne reaches his arm out and a torrent of heat rushes toward me and slows my rapid decent to a gentle glide.

The dirt floor seems to rise to meet me before the cold earth stings my toes, shins, then knees before Thorne’s warmth abandons me. Powdery dirt coats my fingers as I catch myself from falling on my face.

“That was insane. You could have broken your neck,” Thorne scolds as he hops down the ladder, crossing the barn floor toward me.

“Wouldn’t want to take that honor from you,” I retort, getting to my feet on shaky legs.

His fingers wrap around my biceps, steadying me then bringing me in close. I’m caught. But I haven’t lost our game. His eyes light with thick contrast as they rove over my face, chest, and torso as he speaks. “The only reason either of us is standing here is because the other has allowed it.”

My flesh burns under his. Not searing. But a gradual warmth that bites into the layers of my skin and spreads over my nerves. Memories of some professor in the political science department’s words about frogs and boiling water emerge from my memory. This is my pot, and I wonder to what degree his marks will be when he’s finished making his point.

“Your view of a fair fight is questionable,” I quip, raising my chin a bit more and hardening my jaw to keep my teeth from chattering.

“By whose rules? You spent weeks pretending to get to know me. Digging yourself a place in my heart. Toying with my emotions. All for what?”

“Just to see devastation on that pretty face of yours,” I admit. Not a lie this time. But the moment I’ve been waiting for hasn’t come yet. And it may never if he doesn’t loosen his grip before he turns me into a piece of kindling.

“A sick joke.” He leans in, and it’s like sitting too close to a bonfire. Every part of him is one degree away from bursting into flame.

“I get bored easily.” I strain to shrug a shoulder and roll my eyes, stealing a glance at the exit.

He snaps, one of his hands releasing my arm to grab my chin and throat. “Did you fuck Fox out of boredom?”

“No,” I say with a wincing smile. “I thought about it though. But he didn’t give into me the way you would have.”