Chapter Sixteen Odessa #2
“No,” I gasped as she toppled to the side, keeping her with me as I pulled with all my might on Freya’s reins.
But my horse didn’t want to stop. She kept running, until I pulled her head so hard she had no choice.
“Sryker,” I called.
He slowed his horse and turned, his eyes going wide as he looked past me to the trail.
I twisted, following his gaze as I forced Freya around.
She bucked, coming up on her front two feet, just as the alligask broke through three fence posts, making enough room for it to claw free.
It opened its jaws, flashing sharp teeth the size of my fingers.
“Faze!” Evie’s shout filled the air as my stomach dropped.
“Gods.” I fumbled for the crossbow, lifting it up and firing at the beast. But we were too far away, and my hands were shaking so badly my aim was shit. “Give me a bolt.”
Evie kept screaming Faze’s name, holding her arms out for him to run to her.
The alligask might have been slower on land than water, but it was still faster than our little tarkin.
“No.” I kicked at Freya, forcing her to move toward the monster even though she was shaking. I ripped the bag of bolts from Evie’s hands, my fingers trembling as I fished one free. It slipped and fell to the ground. “Damn it.”
Panic surged as I took out another, the tip slicing through my flesh. Blood poured, coating my fingers and making it almost impossible to load the bolt. But I managed to get it notched and loaded. Then I forced a steady breath as I lifted the weapon and fired it at the monster.
The bolt sank into the alligask’s milky-white eye.
But it didn’t stop coming toward Faze. It snarled in my direction, like a promise that I’d be next.
“Faze!” Evie’s voice cracked as she screamed at the top of her lungs.
I pulled Freya to a stop, not willing to get any closer as I took out another bolt. Please. I prayed a god was listening. Please don’t take him from her.
From me.
I loaded the bolt and lifted the crossbow, holding my breath as I fired. It bounced off the monster’s thick hide and into the grass.
Evie fell forward, screaming and hysterical as the monster’s tail flicked forward over its head toward Faze. It swiped his body to the side, knocking him off his feet.
I reached for my sword, knowing there was nothing I could do. I wouldn’t risk Evie by taking her any closer, but I couldn’t just stay here and watch as that monster devoured Faze whole.
Don’t even think about it.
Ransom’s voice echoed in my mind, like he was sitting beside me, knowing exactly what I was about to do.
“I’m sorry.” I shifted sideways, about to swing off the saddle, when a horse and rider blew past me, nearly hitting my shoulder.
A blur of white and silver and steel flew through the air as an ax glinted beneath the sun. Then that ax drove through the alligask’s skull, cleaving its open jaw in two.
I blinked, sure I was dreaming.
A woman with hair as pale as snow knelt on the beast’s twitching corpse—a warrior dressed in gray leather and metal armor, the steel pieces gleaming beneath the sun.
She looked up and met my gaze. Her light-brown irises and the persimmon starburst from those born on the soil of Genesis made her eyes appear like twin flames.
She was as beautiful as she was intimidating. Younger than I’d imagined from the story in the journal. Older than me, but not by much.
Her hair and kohl-lined eyes might have been enough to tie her to the journal, but the tattoos on her face were exactly as the book described.
A row of five four-pointed stars was inked across her cheekbone. The largest covered her temple with thin lines that extended from top and bottom points.
Evie’s quick inhale meant she recognized the woman from the journal, too.
The thunder of hooves came from behind me a moment before we were surrounded by horses and riders, each clad in the same leather and metal armor as the woman.
One man rode to retrieve her horse while two others went to the broken fence, picking up the fallen bars. Each had a star tattooed on his temple.
The warrior pulled her ax free from the monster’s skull, frowning at the blood on its rounded blade.
Putrid, green blood.
Lyssa.
That monster would never have been stopped by a fence. The infection running through its veins, the infection that had turned its blood from red to green, that had clouded its raspberry eyes with a white film, had driven it to kill simply because it could.
Or because it had felt me riding through the bogs.
If not for that woman, Faze would be dead.
“Another one.” Her lip curled as she wiped the green blood on a nearby tuft of grass. “Gods, it stinks. That’s three with green blood in as many months.”
It was spreading, faster and farther. As hard as Ransom had tried to keep the infection from crossing Turah’s borders, it was too late. Lyssa was creeping across Calandra, and it was only a matter of time before it stretched from one side of the continent to the other.
She stood tall and stared at me, her eyes narrowing. “Who are you?”
I opened my mouth to answer, but Sryker appeared at my side, his hand going to my shoulder.
“Are you all right?”
I sighed, glancing down to Evie and then to Faze, who’d hurried over to stand beside Freya’s feet. “We’re okay.”
“Your hand.” He shook his head at the blood, reaching for his saddlebags to take out a strip of cloth.
“Thanks.” I wrapped the wound and was about to get down to collect Faze when a man dressed entirely in black leather walked up from behind us.
He was built like Ransom, tall, broad, and muscular. His dark hair was short and neatly combed. He moved with grace and a confidence that made me take notice. His face was clean-shaven, the lines of his jaw and cheekbones as sharp as blades.
Other than the three stars tattooed on his temple and cheek, he could have passed for a nobleman in a Quentin court.
The man picked Faze up by the scruff of his neck, earning a snarl from both the tarkin and Evie.
“I’ll take him.” I stretched an arm out for Faze, but the man swung him out of reach. My heart climbed into my throat as he tsked.
“Interesting pet,” he drawled, his voice as smoky as his eyes. The magenta starburst of Laine was barely visible in his inky gaze.
“Give him to me. Now.” I infused as much authority as I could muster into my voice and snapped my fingers. It was as close to sounding like Margot as I ever had—my stepmother would be proud.
A baby monster, live and relatively tame, would trade for an exorbitant price on the black market.
The corner of the man’s mouth twitched as he studied Faze for another heartbeat, then handed him over.
Evie hauled him into her arms, burying her nose in his fur.
“Who are you?” I asked.
His mouth stretched into a smirk.
A smirk that reminded me so much of my husband that my heart ached.
“She doesn’t know who we are, Thora,” he said to the white-haired woman as she came to stand at his side.
Together, they were terrifying.
The warrior—Thora—didn’t spare me a glance. Her focus was on Evie and Faze, her eyes hard like she was debating killing another monster today. When her attention shifted toward me, her expression was blank and assessing.
My pulse boomed in my ears as she stared and stared.
Then she dismissed me with a blink and walked away, as if I was nothing but a trivial inconvenience in her day of monster slaying.
Wow, she was intimidating. The air rushed from my lungs before I could stop it, and the man’s smirk widened.
There was only one smirking man in this realm I would tolerate, and it wasn’t this one. “What?” I snapped.
“You really haven’t heard of us?”
“No.”
He took a step away and gave a flourishing bow, another reflection of a nobleman. “We, my lady, are the Mavins.”
No sooner had he stood tall than another one of the men walked over. His hair was a rich auburn, shaved at the sides but unruly from the top to his nape. His starbursts were as blue as Evie’s. In his meaty grip, he carried a bloody crossbow bolt.
The bolt I’d shot into the alligask’s eye.
“Want this, Jodhi?” he asked.
“Thanks, Mathias.” Jodhi took it from him and touched the green blood at the pointed tip with his gloved finger. Then extended it to me. “Did you fire this?”
“Yes.” I ripped it from his grip.
He chuckled. “Nice try, doll.”