Perigee [bxb] | Bad Moon Book II

43; {Jaylin}: painless

Imani was brought in after that—slung down onto the ground like a heavy, inanimate sack. Jaylin could see her chest move, he could hear her heartbeat, but whatever they'd done to her left her unconscious and that was what frightened him the most. That they'd found a way to take down Imani. They'd found a way to subdue the most powerful wolf in the North West.

Alex was thrown to his knees beside her, a bead of blood slipping down from his nose. The skin beneath his eye was bruised a dark purple—but something was off about the expression on his face. His skin pale and paper thin, his lips moving in a silent, soundless mutter. He rocked back and forth on his knees and the blood fell from his nose to red rug beneath him.

Jaylin found Quentin's face—the pale skin and the dark beneath his eyes. The chapped lips, the hollowed look. Quentin watched him with tired, faded gaze—but still. He watched him.

Jaylin felt the blood draining down all the curves of his neck. "How..." he whispered.

A set of large wooden doors stood directly across the room from Ziya's throne. Jaylin wouldn't have guessed that it led outside, but it must have because a sudden wind pressed against it. The doors shook and shuttered the walls.

"They should've never gotten through the wolves at the watch," Izzy said. Jaylin regretted looking at her then. The tears that stained her eyes crimped fear into his heart. Elizaveta edged closer, angling herself to lock her fingers through Izzy's in a kind of gentle solidarity.

"They weren't at the watch," Nicon grated, still crumpled forward. Still biting back all his pain.

That's right. She'd taken Quentin to a medick. Alex must've gone along to watch after him.

"This's the one that killed Andre?" asked the hunter. He looked to the queen, yanking a knife from his weaponry belt. "May I?"

She gestured forward with a gracious hand and the hunter moved down the steps with a pep in his step. Jaylin's heart stammered against his ribs. He tried to build that fire in him again, but the lich was nowhere to be found.

The hunter reached down, a ruthless hand fisting in his hair. The wet threads caught easily against the leather of the hunter's glove and Jaylin gnashed his teeth as he was wrenched up onto his knees, that cold blade pressed like ice to his cheek.

Beneath the hunter's arm, he saw Quentin move—the slightest adjustment of his hand around the arm rest of the throne. His knuckles went white around the wood.

Then the blade pressed in. When he felt the knife pricked his skin, Jaylin was brought back to that night at the cemetery. The look on Tyler's face when he'd pressed his joint out on the bare skin of his forearm. This man was no different. He wanted to see the pain, he wanted to hear it.

Had it been a cigarette, Jaylin could have withstood it. Had it been a normal steel blade, he could have grit his jaw until the pain passed. But the knife was made of silver, and when it cut into his skin, it was with the searing burn of a red-hot iron. He tightened his muscles—shook as the blade traveled a wicked, slanted line toward his chin. He could stop himself from screaming, but he had no control over the tears. Sights blurry, he saw Quentin move again—a fruitless attempt at strength, until the barrel of Ziya's gun bunted a crude warning against his skull.

After a grueling beat, the pain stopped and he caught his own reflection on the bloody blade—a crooked cut sliced deep along the skin of his cheek.

"To be honest, I wasn't a fan of Andre," the hunter said, tilting Jaylin's head this way and that, like he was admiring the work he'd done. "Guy was a bit of a prick—so really I should be thanking you."