CHAPTER FIVE
Terror ran through my veins, turning my blood to ice.
Chimera. Chimera.
“What the hell are they doing here?” I asked. My heart was thundering, and a pit had burrowed low into my belly. “How?”
Most of Eskalon lay beyond tall mountains and was bordered by dense woodlands—all landscapes chimera hated and avoided. The natural barriers acted almost like walls, making attacks on the towns and city incredibly rare. In fact, a chimera attack was rare across the entire country of Eskalon.
Though the same couldn’t be said of my country. Azeal was on the edge of the wildlands where they roamed free.
Brennan shook his head, his brows furrowed together.
“I don’t—I don’t know. But it doesn’t matter.
They’re here.” There was a crash below us.
His face paled. “From the sound of it, they’re already inside the tavern.
” His body remained pressed against mine, while my arms were still wrapped tightly around him.
For a second, I felt like I was just a little girl again, hearing the monsters yell and snarl in the wilds beyond Azeal. Being told to stay still and hide by my mother until they passed, being warned by the guards not to go outside until they were killed.
At that moment, I held onto Brennan like he was my anchor.
Like he could keep me from drowning in total panic.
And something in the way he held me back told me that I was doing the same for him.
That no matter how different we were, or how little we knew about each other, we were still both mortal, and alive.
We both felt the same primal fear. Had the same need to survive.
Because we’d all grown up in a world terrorized by these monsters.
The screams below us grew louder, the voices more panicked before they erupted into screeches of pain.
There was a violent crash, followed by the sound of glass shattering amidst a chimera’s bone-rattling howl.
Hoarse and deep. Deadly. A sound I knew well.
This wasn’t just any chimera attacking. Only one kind could howl like that.
Fresh shivers of fear broke out across my body as I recalled something that had been locked away in my memories.
“It’s an adult,” I said, my hands gripping Brennan even more desperately. “It’s at its full strength.”
“An adult! Are you sure?” he asked.
I nodded, wishing I was wrong, wishing we could go back to a moment ago, to where it was just him, and just me, our lips a breath apart.
The muscles in his jaw tightened. But with one nod, I knew he believed me, trusted me.
He pulled back, just enough to regain his balance, and our bodies separated.
All at once, I felt the loss of his warmth, the comfort of his weight against mine.
But his hands cupped my face, his eyes frantically searching mine.
“How do you know that?” he asked.
My throat tightened. I looked away. “Because I faced one. Once.” My voice shook. “Years ago.” Seven years ago. I’d never forget the sound it made. Nor could I forget my mother’s final gasp of breath. The sounds were tied together for me. They always would be.
So was my final touch of her skin, our last hug, the final feel of her arms around me. The last time she was alive.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I’m sorry that happened to you.”
It had been a fully grown chimera that wounded my mother in the woods that day.
And it was my touch that couldn’t heal her, couldn’t help her.
No matter how much I prayed to the Gods, screaming and crying out for help, all I could do was make it worse.
All I did was weaken her further. And I was so fucking sorry every day that had passed.
I would never know if she could have been saved, never know what might have happened if I hadn’t touched her at all, if the Azete hadn’t awoken.
If maybe, just maybe, the healers could have reached her in time if it weren’t for me.
I would always be forced to live with the fact that it was my touch that stole her last breath. And that as poisonous as I was, she was still reaching for me—still trying to hold onto me, even at the end.
There was another crash. The floor shook, followed by more terrified yells.
I gasped, nearly stumbling, as the scar on my arm, the one this body hid, began to burn, reminding me. Warning me.
“Hey. Hey now,” Brennan said, steadying me again. He turned my face up. “Look at me. It’s going to be all right. I need you to barricade your door.”
“W—What?” I asked, my mind halfway between the horrors of the past and the ways in which it was about to cruelly catch up to me.
“Samara, we don’t have much time. Take the torch from the wall,” he continued, “and hold it tight. I pray it doesn’t come to this, but have it ready in your hands to defend yourself.
” Stepping back from me, his face hardened, the muscle in his jaw tensing.
“I will come back for you.” He reached for the hilt of his sword.
Frantically, I shook my head, reaching out for him. But he was already too far away, and I could barely move from the wall. I was stuck to it, my legs not yet working.
“No. Don’t,” I begged. “Don’t go.”
“I must,” he gritted through his teeth. “My friends are down there. And so are yours. As are my—” He shook his head. “You’ll be safe up here, I swear. I will make it so. You survived once. Believe you can do so again.” He eyed the room again. “Does your door lock?”
I nodded dumbly, my heart thundering as he withdrew his blade, the metal gleaming in the firelight. It was as new and shiny as I’d expected when I first saw it, but thick and sharp enough to kill.
“Lock it then,” he said. “Once I’m gone, push your dresser in front, and don’t move it away. Don’t open the door. Not for anyone, no matter what you hear. Promise me. Samara, promise me.”
But I only stared. My heart pounded, the sound of the chimera’s howl repeating through my mind like a death rattle. I still remembered the blood, the horror.
My mother’s final gasp. The trusting, loving look in her eyes when I killed her. Our final touch. The last time her skin felt warm.
Fear was crawling through me. Fear and disgust and love. Because that was all I’d known in her final moments.
Brennan lowered his chin to me without waiting for my answer.
His emotions were so strong, so focused on me, they poured out of him and into my body.
His thoughts were fuzzy, but their meaning was clear.
He was afraid, terrified of fighting the chimera.
But he was more afraid of losing his friends, of seeing me hurt.
The protective need he had to keep everyone safe was giving him courage, enough to face the beasts.
His gaze moved desperately to the torch still propped into its metal rungs, and back to me, our eyes locking—one last time.
Samara, he thought, the words suddenly coming through clearly. Please. Survive. Be safe and be well.
And then he turned, as another cry of pain exploded through the walls. He ran out the door. Ran to fight a chimera. A fully grown chimera. To protect me. To protect his friends. To protect mine.
And he was going to get himself killed.
Fuck. Fuck!
I could feel it then, suddenly, rising above the panic and fear—sensations that were too powerful for me to ignore—that were rising too powerfully within me.
I’d been feeding off of Brennan since we began speaking.
And that was on top of all I’d taken from him the night before. He’d fed me so easily, so freely.
And because of that, he was in so much more danger than he knew.
Everyone in the tavern was. Chimera were demons of the old world, enormous monsters made up of many beasts.
Their body was that of a bull, topped by two mismatched heads.
One of which could always breathe fire. A poisonous snake was their tail, always ready to strike and incapacitate prey.
Between their three heads, the beast could attack from every angle, killing in a thousand torturous ways.
They were worse than a nightmare, more horrifying than you could imagine, until you faced one.
And I was sure that there was only one person in the tavern who had ever done so, who had ever faced one, fought one, and lived.
Me.
I stared at my reflection in the mirror across the room, barely recognizing my face. But I knew this was the last time I’d see it.
I darted to the wall and reached for the torch, the flames flickering against the mirror’s glass.
Then I closed my eyes, concentrating my energy across my body.
My coin belt, bra, and dancing skirts shifted into black riding pants and boots.
I topped it with a matching linen tunic—clothes I could move in, clothes I could fight in.
Clothes I could wear to run away.
I eyed Brennan’s purse, still sitting on the desk across the room. My escape money. My freedom. I took a step toward it.
But I heard another cry from below.
One that had me racing in the opposite direction, out of the room, and down the hall.
Cecelia.
I barely breathed before I reached the stairwell, the smoke from my torch billowing as I tore down the steps, two at a time.
Small fires had erupted in every corner of the tavern. Tables had been overturned, ale spilled out across the floor. The stage had been smashed in half. The doors leading outside were completely destroyed.
Bodies were strewn across the ground with limbs bent in unnatural ways. Soldiers and farmers who’d been coming here for years were bleeding from their arms and legs. Most were trying to escape, scrambling and pushing their way toward the hole where the doors had once been.
Cecelia screamed again. I pushed through the crowd, yelling her name, until I found her crouched between the remains of the stage. Two sets of eyes glowed in the shadows behind her.