Page 66 of Run of Ruin

Me? I was all brute force and bad decisions. I had no finesse, or foresight. After fighting a few off with pure strength, a wolf managed to come at me from another angle and sink its teeth deep into my arm before I could even react. I roared, more pissed than anything, but my idiot sheep panicked, bolting straight into the waiting jaws of another wolf. By the time Thorne cut the thing down, it was too late. Stupid animal was dead.

Bex was on me in an instant, killing the wolf still latched to my arm and hastily binding the wound with a strip of her shirt, even though it left her calf momentarily exposed. I tried to protest, but she wouldn’t hear it.

When dawn finally broke, only Thorne and Briar still had their animals alive. Out of everyone else, only three more hadmanaged the same. The rest… Well, you didn’t have to look too hard to see the blood on the dirt. Only five people completed the trial, and won resources for their collectives, but at least no other Challengers died.

When we got back from that trial a few hours ago, they insisted I take the first shower and deal with the mess on my arm. It hurt like hell, so I didn’t bother arguing. The hot water stung like a mother, and by the time I was clean, the dull throb in my arm had turned into a sharp, relentless ache I could no longer ignore.

I slipped out of the bathroom and made my way to the room I now shared with Zaffir. As I stepped inside, Zaffir’s gaze drifted to my bare chest before snapping up to meet my eyes.

“You need to get that arm checked out,” he said, his voice softer than I expected.

“I’m fine,” I muttered, turning my back to him as I started to dress.

“That was a nasty bite,” he added, and I heard him get up, his bare feet padding across the floor until his hand settled on my shoulder.

“Nothing I can’t handle,” I grunted, trying to ignore the way his touch stirred something in me I hadn’t let myself think too hard about. I’d tried chalking it up to Bex’s involvement, but there was something about Zaffir that hooked me in ways I didn’t fully understand.

“Maybe so, but you should still let us patch you up,” he said, gently grabbing my arm to study the wound. I met his eyes and I wish I hadn’t because there was a heat in them that I had been quietly avoiding since that morning in the kitchen.

Before I could pull away, a knock hit the door.

I yanked my arm free, earning a smirk from him, and he crossed the room to answer it. Bex stood there, hair damp, skinflushed from the heat of her own shower, and a first aid kit tucked under one arm.

“Welcome, Dr. Hollis,” Zaffir teased, stepping aside to let her in. “Our patient is being quite stubborn.” She shot him a faint smile before striding over to me.

“Sit,” she ordered, her tone leaving no room for argument.

My eyes betrayed me, trailing the droplets of water slipping down her throat, over her collarbone, disappearing into the dip of her robe’s neckline.

She caught me looking. The unimpressed arch of her brow told me she knew exactly where my head was at.

“Yes, ma’am,” I muttered, sinking down onto the edge of the bed.

Zaffir dropped onto his bed, reaching for the cursed camera I’d grown to hate having in our room.

“Come on, not now,” I groaned, shooting him a glare. Bex glanced over her shoulder at him, one brow raised.

“You know I have to feed them a certain amount of behind-the-scenes fluff every day,” he said with a casual shrug, fiddling with the lighting until the room was bathed in that cold, artificial glow. “And who doesn’t eat up the ‘tough girl patches up her big, brooding boyfriend with lingering sexual tension’ bit? It’s a classic.”

Bex didn’t even blink. She’d gotten good at tuning the cameras and the man behind them out when she needed to. Zaffir, for all his charm and easy jokes, still wore the Praxis colors, even if it didn’t always feel like it fit him. Every time he picked up that camera, it was a reminder of where he came from. Where he really belonged.

The red light blinked on, and I forced myself not to look at it. I was getting better at pretending it wasn’t there, but it still crawled under my skin.

The plan was working, though. The people loved us. Bexand her loyal protectors. Crowds had started showing up outside the trial arenas, shouting our names, waving signs. Zaffir told me there were entire threads and chat rooms dedicated to us, fans cutting together clips of our moments, setting them to music like we were some tragic, war-torn romance epic. It was ridiculous.

Zaffir kept saying it was good, that getting the people on our side gave us leverage. But I noticed the nerves he had when he thought nobody was watching. I knew he was thinking of something specific when he’d warned us not to let it go too far.

I just wasn’t sure whattoo farlooked like anymore.

Didtoo farmean I shouldn’t kiss her where the cameras could see? Didtoo farmean she shouldn’t show how much she cared about all of us? Didtoo farmean I wasn’t allowed to fall in love with this fierce, stubborn, maddeningly beautiful woman in front of me?

A sharp sting in my arm yanked me out of my spiraling thoughts. I hissed through my teeth as Bex pressed a cloth against the deep puncture wounds. My instinct was to jerk my arm away, but her hand shot out, steady and firm.

“I have to clean it, Ezra,” she warned, voice low and certain.

I gritted my teeth and held still, biting back a curse as she wiped at the gashes with something sharp-smelling. Antibiotic, I guessed. We didn’t have this kind of thing back in Canyon. This little box, packed with gauze, creams, and ointments that promised to stop infection, was a luxury the people in Canyon would have to bleed for.

I stared at the stupid red kit like it had personally wronged me. So simple. So easy. And so far out of reach for the people that Bex loved. I could have cared less about if the people in Canyon suffered after the way they treated me, but Bex’s love for them had softened my own anger.

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