Chapter 40
Nelle
Valarie slashed a pointed finger at me. “Catch her!”
Fear beaded on my skin like icy flakes. I spun so wildly my feet tangled in my long skirt and I nearly fell.
Hitching up the torn hem, I burst into a frantic sprint toward the outside passageway cutting through the Keep, the ends of the bone-chains swinging behind me like a shadow.
Sage bounded at my side, matching my weaving path around the fallen Crowthers littering the courtyard.
A lash of hair whipped across my cheek as I risked a backward glance.
Oh gods.
A sheet of furious magic trapped Graysen, shivering him in place. He shuddered where he knelt, unable to move as Zrenyth’s ropes snaked about his wrists. Through the waves of magic, he stared at me. No one else saw the anguish, the bright shine of terror. He couldn’t speak, by his eyes did—Run!
And then I was careening into the passageway.
Blue flamed torches wavered as I streaked onward, the air stirring with my manic flight as I burst outside, hurtling across the wooden drawbridge.
Pebbles skittered under my feet as I dodged abandoned vehicles, looking with longing at their metal forms. There was no use stealing one of the SUVs, not with Zrenyth collaring me.
I’d never get past the gates. Besides, I didn’t even know how to fucking drive.
Shouts erupted behind me as Valarie’s cadre surged from the Keep.
I skidded to a halt, jittering in pure panic. Sage whined, dancing at my side, waiting for me to choose a direction—any direction. Tulle flared around my ankles as I whirled around, scanning the moonlit garden.
I didn’t know what to do.
I didn’t know where to run.
Then my gaze snagged on a tall, crumbling building in the near distance, reminding me of Graysen’s tower but on a smaller scale.
The Birds of Prey Rookery.
I pushed off, crashing across the garden. I leapt over low flowerbeds, trampled through shrubs, rose thorns scratching my shins and hooking sheer fabric as I bolted toward the ancient rookery.
My heart hammered against my ribs as I heard the cadre gaining ground.
Sage let loose a furious howl that startled birds from a nearby tree. They burst upwards in a plume of dark shapes against the inky skyline. My wraith-wolf wheeled around, scuffing up clods of dirt as he left my side.
“Sage?!”
I slid to an ungainly stop, my toes digging into damp grass as I pivoted in fright. “SAGE!” Terror pitched my voice to a shrill note.
My wraith-wolf barreled back the way we’d come, his powerful body chewing through the distance.
He hurtled into the cadre, barking furiously, knocking several off their feet like bowling pins.
Darting forward and back, he blocked and herded them like cattle, deftly evading kicks and fists with manic speed.
He wrestled to sink his fangs into their limbs, to rip their throats out, but the bottled lightning collar restrained him, denying him the power to shift into the wraith-void and unleash his ghostly nature.
And there were too many of them.
One soldier swerved around Sage, sprinting straight for me, determination gleaming in his eyes.
Hellsgate!
I left Sage behind, slinging around a tall flax bush, digging deeper to push past the burn in my legs, the inferno scorching my chest. Dead leaves flicked up behind me as I raced onward.
Valarie’s soldier was gaining.
I heard his panting breaths, his heavy footfall crushing grass.
Bristles scraped my legs as I shoved between prickly shrubs to sprint across a patch of lawn, aiming for the steps.
But Valarie’s crony was right on my heels.
Fingertips reaching for the bone-chains skittering just out of his grasp.
A bellow of rage ripped the night apart. “DON’T YOU FUCKING DARE!”
I flung a startled glance over my shoulder.
Graysen ran parallel to me, a distance away, shooting across the gardens with long strides.
Rage blazed across his bloodied features.
A fresh bruise purpled his cheek, and a torn piece of Zrenyth’s rope still dangled from one wrist. He wasn’t using his unnatural speed, but he still moved faster than the cadre.
He bent, scooped something from the ground, twisted his battered body as he flung a stone.
It whizzed through the air and struck.
A dull crack of bone breaking rang in my ears.
A strangled cry of pain followed. And the soldier fell, tumbling across the lawn.
“RUN, NELLE, RUN!” Graysen roared.
More men and women surged after me.
Graysen yanked off his jacket as he dashed onward. Confusion bloomed as I watched him veer away, leaving me to fend for myself. There was no time to stop and wonder, to scream in terror—Why are you leaving me?!
I raced towards the rookery.
Behind me, pounding footsteps closed in as the nearest woman caught up, gasping, “Give up. You’ll never escape!”
In the far-off darkness, Sage’s enraged barking broke up the ragged sound of my puffing breaths, the fear rushing in my ears.
My foot hit the first step leading up to the doorway.
Be strong, be strong, be strong…
A second step—
Third. Fourth.
A fifth as I climbed the chipped, worn steps.
I shoved the door open with my shoulder and plunged headlong into darkness.
The door slammed shut, and a thick sheet of black descended upon me as all light winked out.
Despite willingly throwing myself into the rookery, my fear ensnared me immediately.
Dark, dark, dark.
I can’t see… I can’t see…
Terror thrashed my heart. The smell of stale air and the frigid cold of the pitch-black room were too much like the tithe prison.
My chest heaved, and I trembled like a leaf, struggling against the panic attack, but oxygen wouldn’t come.
My knees wobbled and my mind buckled under the weight of my distress.
Outside, a shrill cry of pain cut through the night.
A crash of wood on stone.
A heavy thud as someone barreled inside.
I choked on a soundless scream.
A masculine grunt followed. “Shit. Fuck.”
And then, through the shimmering veil of tears, I realized it was no longer dark.
Astonishment punched through my fear.
And strangely, delight, too.
Air seeped into my lungs as light swirled all around me.
Tiny willwips chirped excitedly as they whirled about the rookery, leaving a trail of hazy color.
Charming pinks and earthy oranges, greens and raspberry reds, metallic sheens too.
Pops of light that washed the darkness away in a glow of a rainbow.
They fluttered, chittering as they nestled in my hair and landed on the tips of my fingers, only to flit off in a scattering of rich hues. They were cute in their enthusiastic curiosity. A stark contrast to everything sinister that was happening tonight.
The rookery expanded around me as their illumination filled the space. Beneath my feet was a bed of straw. A drinking basin sat near the foot of a crumbling staircase that spiraled the inner walls, and narrow seating curved along the eroded walls.
As the clouds of willwips danced overhead, I turned slowly toward the man who had saved me from the dark.
Graysen lay sprawled on the straw floor, his jacket beside him. He’d used it as a net to catch the tiny creatures, and the last willwip slipped free of the adamere folds to soar upward in a filmy streak of copper.
It was the slightest stirring of misty silver that drew my astonished gaze from Graysen’s bleeding figure up to the high ceiling.
A jolt blitzed through my nerves. I jerked back, clapping both hands over my mouth to stifle a scream.
The ghostly Birds of Prey hung upside down like bats, their talon-tipped toes curled around slender beams stretching wall to wall.
They were pale apparitions that seemed to shift and fade and rematerialize in the murkiness of the stone ceiling.
The Birds of Prey weren’t-quite-alive and all of them were female. Like Sage, they were kin to wraiths.
One flicked her eyes open and I met her pitch-black gaze.
Her soft nose crinkled as she hissed fiercely, baring vicious, piranha-like teeth.
She dropped, flipping mid-air, landing silently in a crouch.
My mouth went dry as she unfolded herself slowly and loomed over my shorter frame.
Phantom wind teased her mane of tight curls and ruffled her tattered dress to float about her lithe figure.
“Stay still,” Graysen whispered. “Don’t move. Don’t run.”
Her sisters followed, one by one, falling in eerie silence until I was surrounded by the spectral creatures. They circled, their talon-tipped fingers curled into claws and narrow gazes fixed unblinking on me.
“They’re volatile,” Graysen warned softly. “Unpredictable. Even with us. More so with a newcomer in their rookery. They’ll try to intimidate you… or worse, try to kill you.”
Their leader leaned close, her flesh-shredding teeth glistening.
“Amara,” Graysen warned gently.
But she ignored him.
She sniffed, her exhale shivering my hair. A long, forked tongue flicked out, and I almost shrieked as the tip grazed my cheek in a sticky smear.
Her eyes flashed wide.
She reared back and screamed—a shrill, piercing call of threat.
The Birds of Prey attacked.
I threw up my hands to protect myself as her sisters lunged, screaming like banshees, hacking at my dress and slashing at my face, close enough to terrorize but not hurt me.
Graysen rose and moved carefully through their surging mass.
“It’s okay. I’m here. You need to earn their respect.
Stay strong.” He reached for my hands, gently drawing them away from my face, lacing our fingers together.
His thumb brushed reassuring strokes along my trembling palm as he edged closer until he stood behind me, banding an arm around my middle.
I molded my shaking figure into his warmth, his protective stance.
“I’ve got you,” he whispered as the Birds continued to whirl and lunge, snarling and hissing.
A thunder of footsteps.
The Birds froze.
Their black gazes snapped toward the door just as it smashed open, and one of Valarie’s men erupted inside.
The rookery exploded with eldritch screeches.
The Birds streaked forward, talons extended, teeth gnashing.
They moved so fast, whirling and swifting like windswept smoke.
It was hard to see through the violence.
I caught only flashes of the soldier trying to fend them off, striking with his fists and losing.
He stumbled, throwing his arms over his head as they clawed and bit his arms, his hands.
He toppled backward through the doorway, crashing onto the stone steps and disappearing from sight.
Despite Graysen’s warning, I tore free of his embrace and rushed to the doorway. The soldier lay in a crumpled heap on the lawn, groaning dazedly, alive but left with a chunk missing from an ear, and his fingers a gruesome mess of flesh and bone-white knuckles.
The Birds whirled around me in ghostly streaks. My racing heart slowed as their frenzy eased and they drew closer to where I stood with my fingers curled around the edge of the door. I blinked in astonishment as they bristled, not at me, but at those shadowy figures gathering outside.
I backed slowly to where Graysen stood, puffing out a relieved breath and dragging a hand through his damp hair.
The Birds now seemed to vibrate differently around me. They cocked their heads, curiosity gleaming in their black eyes as they watched me retreat. There was a sense of protectiveness in the way they settled, giving me space, yet guarding me with their numbers.
A few of the deadly birds drifted to the open doorway on phantom winds, baring fangs and screeching warnings at Valarie’s cadre gathering outside.
They weren’t going to let anyone in.
Well—they’d allowed Graysen.
And then Sage, who limped inside, whimpering but wagging his tail, relieved to see me. And Graysen. My wraith-wolf barreled forward to lick his face as he dropped to his knees to greet my overgrown puppy.
The willwips, unbothered by the Birds of Prey, danced above him, tinting his dark hair and broad shoulders in splashes of soft coral and vivid yellow.
Graysen glanced up, his hands buried in Sage’s misty fur, offering me a tentative smile.
His irises had darkened back to their original color.
And when his gaze met my own, my traitorous heart swelled at the sight of him.
Fractured painfully to see him so badly hurt.
And then shattered entirely when I admitted to myself that I hadn’t been honest earlier.
Some spark of truth had flared within me when he’d confessed that he loved me.
But I’d beat those feelings back and crushed them beneath my rising temper.