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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My knees wobbled as a great weight of guilt and fear turned my blood to lead. I felt as if I were being pressed into the earth, down, down, down into a grave of my own making.
Oh gods...what did I do?
"A man with wyrmblood running through his veins..." Its voice changed from thoughtful to cunning. A tongue flicked out, long and thin and dripping with saliva. "I can taste it in the air. Your fear. Your guilt... Your tenderness. You care about this man." Its laugh spiked with lethal intent rippled around us.
"Please...don't!" I begged, recognizing the unspoken threat. My wounded cheeks stung as salty tears rolled down to fall from my jaw.
"If you don't get me wyrmblood, Tabitha, I'll hunt him down. I'll take great pleasure in dragging him back to the lair you bind me in. Maybe I'll let those filthy krekenns of yours gnaw on his legs. Maybe I'll trap you in their sticky webs so you can watch while I split him apart like spoiled fruit and drain all the blood from his lifeless body."
"No! No!" I shrieked in utter terror. I wrestled against it. But it had me pinned in place like a butterfly nailed to canvas. "Please don't hurt him!"
Fiendish laughter split apart the oppressive silence of the forest.
Its beastly talons holding me tight morphed into soft human fingers, warm and slender against my skin, as it fell away and my aunt stretched back into herself.
And it was gone.
I didn't feel anything. Not the agony throbbing across my face. Nor the bloodhound slinking out to heal torn skin and knit the broken bones of my nose back together. Or how the dark magic licked away my pain.
All that washed through my mind and body on bitterly-cold waves, rising higher and higher, was terror. Absolute terror. Bone-quaking terror.
Now that it could push free of my aunt, seemingly any time it felt like. Would it show itself during the day? Would it hunt Varen like it threatened to do?
Breathe, just breathe.
The Bloodhound whined, worried.
Think. Think.
I slumped my forehead against the tree, trembling all over. Dragging air into my lungs, I dug my fingers into sharp bark until I could feel the sting of grazed flesh and stamped upon the black terror, smashing it back.
I'd never let the dark creature hurt Varen. Never. But I had to save my aunt too. Varen would be safe as long as I was able to get my hands on wyrmblood.
All I had to do was steal blood from Varen. I could ask him for it, but if he demanded to know the reason why, I wouldn't be able to tell him the truth.
