Two girls. Two secrets.
Only one can survive.
Years before Nelle Wychthorn plans her escape, Tabitha Catt may unearth something in a Horned God's lair that is the key to freedom.
Desperate to save her beloved aunt from a dark curse, Tabitha is out t...
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Twilight descended in gauzy layers of flint and steel. In the distance, the forest's crooked limbs clawed at the slate sky and mist rose at its gnarled roots in murky waves of smoke. I honed in on the figure emerging from the treeline, a brisk breeze kissing my cheeks with icy nips and fingering the loose strands of hair framing my temple.
As soon as my gaze landed on Varen my heart erupted into a manic beat. It was like holding onto an electrical fence. The fierce pulse of energy cracked through every part of my body with a quickened thud, thud, thud.
I wasn't listening to a single bickering word Beckah and Oswin were trading between them. Stones skittered as my pace slowed down on the pebbled pathway, and I came to a standstill.
Varen strode across the long lawn, unmindful that his filthy combat boots crushed the fragile blades of newly sprouting grass beneath their thick soles. He approached the mansion with an arrogant stride, his menace exaggerated by the fish-scaled armor swathing his imperious figure. He bent his neck back, flicking sweaty locks of hair from his forehead before scrubbing a broad hand across his cheeks. He puffed out a breath and the air clouded before it swept over his shoulder and faded into the gloom.
Every single time I'd spotted Varen this week, a savage storm exploded in my veins, charging my blood with rioting emotions—nervousness and excitement, longing and anticipation—the intensity so tumultuous it was as if I stood in an open meadow, my face tipped toward a vicious thunderstorm raging overhead, my body pelted by icy sleet, my hair flailing with wicked winds.
I felt reckless and wild and utterly alive.
It made me believe I'd only been sleepwalking through life before I'd been roused awake by Varen's dirty, wet kiss.
"Tabitha?"
It was perhaps on the third repeat of my name that I startled to awareness, twisting back around to blink blankly at Beckah. The three of us had finished work for the day and Beckah and I had come out to help Oswin carry his tools to the gardening shed. He'd been trimming the frilly hedges at the back of the mansion, and while I was honest with my assistance, Beckah had an ulterior motive. She was trying to wear him down regarding Dolcie's decision to have a small quiet wedding without all the fuss Beckah wanted. Oswin was supporting his fiancée's choice. He didn't care if 500, 50, or even five people attended. I don't think it would have bothered him if she asked him to wear his flannel pajamas to the ceremony either, he just wanted to be married to her.
As the gloaming descended like a slow curtain call, servants trickled into the mansion while a few guards stepped out to take over the evening shift of patrolling the estate.
We'd drawn to a halt not too far from the main entrance to the Deniauds' mansion. The graceful verandah and its wide steps, framed by bushy shrubs, were bathed in pale amber light that poured through the windows. The smell of smokey wood floated down from the numerous chimneys and stained the sky.
