“KC,” Rosalyn breathed, before she could stop herself.

“What?” Hex asked, confusion clear in his tone.

Her eyes flew open, and she stared at him, unsure of how to respond. This was the worst possible time for this, when she was unable to just close her eyes and talk to herself. The relief that sagged her muscles that the stream was still there, that her best friend was still there. She wanted to ask him where the fuck he’d been, but she couldn’t. Not yet.

“Sorry, habit.” She let out a little laugh, but it sounded forced, and she hoped that for all his supernatural senses, Hex couldn’t tell she was lying. “Human prayer.” To distract them both, she swam a little in the water and asked, “Do demons pray?”

He shook his head. “We have no diety, but I’m familiar with the concept. Many creatures pray to gods, if not a diety than just nature itself.”

He looked up, and she didn’t follow his gaze, instead opting to watch him as he studied the canopy of leaves above. She could still see the pain in his eyes, and it gnawed at her.

“Where I come from, demons are a part of religious mythos,” Rosalyn said, bringing his intense eyes back to her. “They’re servants of evil anti-god, and live in hell, this like fire dimension underground.”

Hex chuckled, the sound reverberating low in his throat, and his eyes seemed to soften a touch. It warmed her belly that it seemed she could not only distract him from her truths, but also from his own pain, even just a little.

“It’s said our ancestors lived underground,” he mused. “Nothing about a fire dimension, but just in caves in general. Apparently the first of the royal family lineage led our people out of the depths to live under the sky for the first time.” He shook his head. “Silly tales, though. How would we even have survived underground? It was just a fun story when I was a kid.”

Rosalyn wondered if it was a story that all demon children were told, or just the royal kids. She fought the urge to close her eyes, to see the chat. She didn’t think she’d be able to do it casually, and not react.

Someone cleared their throat behind her, and she whirled in the water. Jian stood there, holding a fluffy black towel.

“Thank you.” She hauled herself up out of the pool, gooseflesh immediately popping out on her skin. The air felt so much cooler now since she’d been in the warmth.

As she took the fabric from Jian, she was pretty sure he was staring past her into the water, but it was hard to tell because of his milky eyes. She still wasn’t sure what he could see, or if he could see in the traditional sense, because he definitely knew his surroundings as if he could.

She patted down her face and opened the towel, turning as casually as she could as she wrapped it around herself. Rosalyn had never been shy about her body, just as comfortable with clothes off or on.

But she’d also never been looked at quite like the way Hex was looking at her in that moment.

It made her want to burrow into the towel, and not out of any shyness or particular want to hide herself, but because it was as if she could feel his gaze stroking her skin, and suddenly it was as if the air would never be cold ever again. His lips parted ever-so-slightly, and she imagined what they would feel like against her own, against her flesh, against her—

Hemlock skittered forward from her pile of clothes, and there was a metallic clatter as he dropped the little tube right behind Hex’s head.

Rosalyn gripped the towel with white knuckles, her mind reeling. She nearly flinched from the whiplash of being cockblocked so hard out of that moment, especially with the level of fear twisting her guts.

How was she going to explain this? Why had the furry fucker helped her hide the thing just to bring it back out again? I can deny I know anything about it, he’s carrying it and they know that the chick that let me out also let him out, so makes sense that maybe she gave it to him—

“Is that…” Jian trailed off as Hex reached for the item, and as his fingertips brushed the copper, something in the air seemed to shift.

Or rather, nothing shifted. It was as if time stopped, as if Rosalyn had blinked for too long or fallen asleep. She couldn’t quantify exactly for how long, or what had really happened at all, there was just this feeling deep inside of her that something had gone on for longer than it was supposed to, that something had happened and frozen everything else—

But there was no time to dwell on that, because in that instant, or the instant after time had been frozen—if it had been frozen—Hex gasped and launched himself out of the water, hurtling through the air towards her.

Her lungs deflated with a hard guck tearing through her lips as Hex’s arm caught her around the ribs. Another body mashed against her spine, and it wasn’t until they hit the ground that she realized he’d essentially sandwiched her between he and Jian.

She gasped raggedly, panic rising in her throat, trying to cry for Hemlock, but her body wasn’t working for her yet. She didn’t know what the fuck was going on, but if the demon with the supernatural senses tackled her to the ground, that meant danger, clearly.

Hex leapt into a crouching position, peering through some of the overgrowth. Jian yelled something, and the prince ducked just as a pillar of flame roared through the air over his head.

Rosalyn was too shocked to scream, even as she managed to take in a lungful of air. The heat on her face was like nothing she’d ever felt before, staring up at the tube of deadly fire shooting through the air above them like a jet engine exhaust.

She rolled onto her side and clawed through the dirt back towards the pool, desperate to make sure her furry friend wasn’t barbecued, but Hex grabbed her waist in one of his impossibly strong arms.

“Stay down!” he barked.

“Hemlock!” she shrieked. She couldn’t see him, couldn’t see anything through the distorted heatwaves emanating from the flames. Her shoulders felt like they were melting and she vaguely wondered if her hair was singed.

The fire stopped as abruptly as it had come, and she thrashed against Hex’s grip, trying to scrabble towards the stone.

“You’ll burn yourself,” he hissed, jerking her flailing form back and shoving her against Jian.

Before Jian could protest Hex standing up, Hemlock splashed up out of the water, quivering in midair and showering them all in a warm mist before landing gracefully in the dirt.

Relief flooded Rosalyn, and she opened her arms, letting him scuttle up her body into them. She buried her face into his fuzz, something inside of her falling into place, as if she’d been off-kilter when she hadn’t known if he was okay. She had no idea how the physics of this creature worked, how he’d been able to fling himself in such a way, but in that moment, she was just glad he seemed to have insane reflexes and survival skills.

“Get to the south cave,” Hex said. “I have to get Klari.”

“No.” Jian snatched the prince’s hand, yanking him back down into a crouch. “She knows what she’s doing, what the risks are. You need to be out of here.”

Hex shook his head vehemently, his eyes somehow massive and melancholy but steeled at the same time. “They’re after her, thinking she knows where I am, but she doesn’t even know who I am. They’ll torture her to death and she won’t be able to give them anything to save herself. We have to get her out of here.”

“She knows the risks,” Jian repeated firmly.

They glared at each other, and Rosalyn looked back and forth between them, imagining a silent conversation just with their eyeballs. She wondered if the two demons were for real telepathic, or if they’d just known each other for so long that they could communicate without words.

The latter was her working theory as Hex swung and Jian easily blocked the punch, as if it were the most predictable thing in the world. It wasn’t predictable, however, to Rosalyn, and she shoved herself back out of the way in surprise, almost leaving her towel behind and gripping it with a hard fist while holding onto Hemlock for dear life with the other.

She didn’t know what to do as they fought. It was a close-quarters brutal beating, but at the same time, strangely intimate. They couldn’t stand up or take up any room, because they were ducking whatever the hell was shooting fire at them. Both large, crouched men, one still sopping wet, exchanging hard jabs and punches and blocks and grunts.

She expected vitriol or defiance, but something was charged and desperate about the interaction, and something Jian had said while she was eavesdropping slammed into her mind. I’ve got you. Always.

“Oh shit,” she blurted, and then snapped her mouth shut before she could add, You guys are fucking.

Hex glanced at her, and Jian used the second of distraction to get his arm up behind his back and force him to the ground.

“I’m not leaving you behind to try to save a woman that signed her death warrant the second she started this rebellion,” Jian growled into his ear. “If she knew who you were, she’d kick your ass twice as hard to make sure you made it to safety. We need to go.”

Rosalyn stayed frozen, unsure of her role in this. The loyalty of the guard to his prince had been clear from the get go, but now knowing that they were together together, and it seemed a pretty deep emotional way…she wasn’t sure whether Jian would be comfortable with her having heard all of this. But how could she possibly convince them to take her along?

Aside from that, she didn’t even know exactly who it was that was invading the camp. Could it be Drakach himself, or his army, or someone else?

And even more aside from that, if she did escape with the heir, that still went against every damn mission she had thus far. If anything, to try to work with Zal and get her ass back home, she should be trying to get Hex caught.

Except he’d just saved her from being barbecued. Twice.

“Too many people have been hurt because of me.” His voice was hoarse, deflated. He stopped struggling.

Jian leaned down, almost as if he were going to whisper in his ear. “Not because of you. Because of him.” He spat the words like poison. “He will pay for what he’s done, but not if you die today.”

Hex gritted his teeth, and Rosalyn held her breath as she watched the war happening behind his eyes. Everything he’d found out that day, the decisions he had to make, she didn’t envy them.

Jian let go of his arm and backed up, turning his head slightly. His expression seemed faraway for a beat, his eyes glazing over even more than normal. “We need to go. Now.”

Hex let out a grunt of frustration, clenching and unclenching his fists, but he didn’t argue, and he didn’t make any move to best his companion. Instead, he held out his hand to Rosalyn.

“It’ll be faster if I carry you,” he said.

Her heart skipped a beat. Somehow, just like that, she hadn’t had to do any convincing to take her along.

And without overthinking whether or not she should, she took his hand.