Chapter 4 - Kiss Me, I’m Useful
The sun was barely up.
Pale gold filtered through the trees, casting long lines of light over the packed dirt clearing. The air smelled like pine, steel, and a little too much unsaid.
Tlacaelel sat on a flat rock at the edge of camp, sharpening his blade with a focus that had nothing to do with the blade. Small, clean strokes. Again. And again.
Not because it was dull. Because his hands needed to be doing something, his thoughts couldn’t undo.
She didn’t feel it. But I did. And now I can’t stop looking at her like she’s already mine.
He didn’t look up when he sensed her.
Renata’s presence always arrived before her footsteps—like pressure building in the air, like the weather was about to shift and didn’t care who it unsettled.
She stopped a few feet
