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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Sucking in a deep breath, I let the truth I'd kept to myself for far too long spill from my mouth. "Irma was having an affair with Gratian and I caught them out."
Tabitha gaped in astonishment. Her lax hand slipped away to the silken pleats at her side.
I blustered onward, throwing up a hand. "I wasn't thinking. I took off into the Hemmlok Forest and he followed. I went too deep, too close to the Heart of the Forest."
"Where the Horned Gods reside," she whispered.
"Yeah," I said, my voice breaking.
"What kind of beast killed your brother?"
The muscles in my shoulders knotted as I rubbed a hand over my chest where the phantom impression of her touch still warmed my flesh.
Hells, I didn't even know what it was, not for sure.
I shifted with unease, widening my stance. "Something makes me think it was more than a lesser creature." A creature I'd never encountered before. "Yet it wasn't like Sirro either. It didn't have the same kind of full might that radiates off a Horned God." I swallowed, shielding my deep shame by dropping my line of sight to my boots with dried mud buried in their creases. "I didn't realize that it was hunting us. It came out of nowhere, from above—"
"Above?" she gasped. My gaze whipped upward to meet horrified eyes. This time it was Tabitha who couldn't hold my gaze. Darkened eyelashes grazed the top of her pale cheeks as she hid herself from me. She anxiously kneaded her curled fingers. The silk draped over her cleavage rose and fell with her quick, shallow breaths. "What did it look like?"
I closed my eyes and I was back there in an instant.
I was going to kill him!
Gratian swayed sluggishly on his feet, knuckles scuffed and swollen. His wild hair was clumped with sweat. Blood dripped from a split lip and a purple bruise petaled beneath his eye. And I wanted more. I wanted to cave his fucking face in. Keep punching, keep striking, until I'd driven him right into the earth six feet under.
Panic outshone the guilt in his violet eyes, gone an otherworldly silver in the gloominess of the forest. "She's pregnant with my child!"
I reeled back, crushing waterlogged leaves beneath my leather shoes, as shock crashed into me.
Disbelief clashed with the devastating agony of betrayal, as fat raindrops knocked into my face. A discordant pattern composed by the dense canopy overhead.
Pregnant? With his child?
The fuck!
Thick fog whirled, sliding up against my trembling body, obscuring the surroundings of black vines strangling trees cloaked in sickly moss.
My fists shook. Anger blistered beneath my skin. Rage burned the air from my lungs. "She's my life, Gratian! I love her!"
