Chapter 27 Shade
Shade
Her scream was a thing of nightmares.
It echoed around me, near, but out of reach.
She was somewhere in the forest.
My blood thundered in my veins, urging me to go. To run. To save my wife.
I heeded the call.
All thoughts fled my mind, my sole focus on getting to Ginger as fast as possible.
And I did.
Faster than should have been possible, I was standing over the faun woman.
The sharp tang of her spilled blood filled the air, along with the acrid burn of something toxic. Something familiar.
She was wounded.
I whirled, searching for the threat that had harmed my precious wife.
I bared my teeth, flexed my fingers, preparing to tear any interloper limb from limb.
I would revel in it—I would remove their entrails and wear them around my neck like a badge of honor.
No folk were nearby.
Only critters—a few squirrels, a mouse or two.
And a beast, a few paces away.
The lumbering thing was savage and hideous, vaguely wolf shaped but much larger than any wolf ought to have been. Saliva dripped from its sharp-toothed maw.
The creature bared its fangs, challenging me. Its eyes glowing an unnatural silver color.
I bared my teeth right back.
I would rip its throat out if I must—I didn’t care if the predator was twice my size and drawn to the scent of Ginger’s blood, she was mine.
Mine to protect. Mine to shelter.
“No,” I snarled, stepping toward the creature, preparing to spring. “Mine.”
Reflexively, I threw both of my hands out in front of me, palms forward.
The beast whimpered, dropping his head in submission. He fled with his tail between his legs.
I relaxed my tensed posture.
Ginger.
Threat diminished, I returned to the faun woman. I knelt and ghosted my fingers over the pulse in her neck, below her nose. A slow trickle of blood crept from one nostril.
She was breathing. Slowly, but breathing.
Her pulse was reedy and thin, more sluggish than it should have been.
The sickly scent of death perfumed the air.
Panic flooded my veins.
Impossible.
She was dying.
“No!” I shouted at her. “You will not die. I forbid it!”
She didn’t move, didn’t even flinch when I lifted her eyelid to get a glimpse at her eyes.
Her pupils were blown and unresponsive.
“Fucking damn it, Ginger! You will NOT die!”
I slipped my arms beneath her and scooped her body into my chest. Her head lolled; her arms hung limply.
Her skin was unnaturally cold.
She smelled like sweat, blood, and the sweet tang of death. She smelled wrong.
Her usually auburn hair was soaked through with blood leaking from a gash in her forehead.
Fuck.
Her blood didn’t smell right—it was tainted.
I caught sight of the bundle of fabric tied in a strange knot on the ground beside where I had found her.
In it lay two red mushrooms. I recognized them immediately—widowmaker mushrooms.
“Damn it, Ginger!”
I needed to get her to a healer. Now.
There was an angel in Moonvale who practiced healing—I had seen her around, had peeked into the windows of her clinic.
She would have to do.
And if she didn’t save my wife, I would murder her myself.
I would murder everyone.
I would destroy everything.
I fled in the direction of town as quickly as my legs would carry me.
It wasn’t fast enough—I could feel Ginger’s pulse as it slowed, feel her body as it grew dangerously colder. I should have wrapped her in my cloak when I had the chance.
I needed to get to the healer now.
As I blinked, I found myself in the dark alley beside the clinic.
Not taking a moment to think, I sprinted to the front door. Shifting Ginger’s weight to one arm, I pounded my fist on the wood. When it didn’t open instantly, I braced myself and kicked the door open with one powerful thrust of my leg.
Someone screamed.
I didn’t care.
“Healer!” I shouted.
“Oh, dear gods! Is that Ginny?” a small, scared voice asked.
The angel. She was here. I exhaled a sigh of relief. I held Ginger’s body out in an attempt to pass her to the woman, but she stepped back hastily, pointing to a cot in the corner.
I growled. I forgot how weak these folk were.
I placed Ginger’s body on the cot.
Fear gripped me as I released her—I didn’t want to let her go.
But the angel flitted in front of me and shoved me out of the way before I realized what was happening.
She splayed her wings, shoving me backward and shielding my wife from view.
I balled my fists. “Step aside, I don’t wish to harm you,” I warned, violent energy thrumming in my bones.
She glanced over her shoulder, her face pinched. “If you want me to heal her, you will step back.”
I held my ground.
“Now,” she urged.
She stared at me, wasting precious seconds when she should have been saving my wife.
Reluctantly, I retreated two paces.
She got to work.
She fluttered her hands over Ginger’s body, hovering over her face, her chest, her stomach.
She mumbled under her breath, words of stress and worry that didn’t make me feel any better about the situation.
“It’s not just the injury to her head, is it?” she asked, not taking her eyes from her patient.
“No,” I answered.
“Did you poison her?”
Red hot anger boiled in my stomach. “Of course not!”
She didn’t respond. She grabbed a pad of gauze and pressed it to Ginger’s forehead to staunch the bleeding there.
I could hear it when Ginger’s heart thumped unevenly.
“She’s dying!” I growled. “Do something!”
“What did you give her?” the angel asked, her voice gentle but wavering slightly.
“Nothing! As I said! I would die before I brought harm to Ginger. But she got into these mushrooms—”
She interrupted me. “Mushrooms? What did they look like?”
“Red. Shiny. Spots,” I said, struggling to remember the details that were overshadowed by my sheer panic. “Looked like a widowmaker.”
She tossed a dagger of a glare in my direction, and then tensed. “Red? Are you sure? Those aren’t native to the area.”
“Red,” I insisted. “I know what I saw.”
“I have to ask you to leave so I can work in peace,” she said tightly.
‘I’m not leaving! I—”
She whirled and looked at me. Her hands were stained with my wife’s blood.
Death burned in her gaze. “I. Said. Leave.”
Her ferocity stopped me short. “You’ll just let her die if I stay?”
She said nothing in response, but a quiet rage lurked in her eyes.
I couldn’t risk it. I held my hands up. “Fine. I’m going.” I backed toward the front door, keeping my eyes on Ginger the entire way.
And then the door slammed shut behind me, and there was a barrier between my precious wife and me.
I crumbled into a pile on the cobblestones, my back sliding against the door.
I dropped my head into my hands.
The angel would save her. They were friends—the healer would surely save her friend.
She wasn’t going to die. She wasn’t going to die.
She wasn’t allowed to die.
Surely, the fates wouldn’t be so cruel.
Though the fates were cruel to me…
As I wallowed in misery, another memory swallowed me whole.
Darkness surrounded me. Unfamiliar darkness—a lack of energy, of life, of anything.
I trembled in my cell.
My shackled feet were bare, chained to the stone floor.
Insects didn’t even dwell in this place. It was worse than death. Far, far worse.
I didn’t know what time it was. What day it was.
What year it was.
Time was endless down here. Limitless.
The agony would never end.
The others were chained in cells beside me, but we had given up on talking long ago.
It was useless.
It didn’t change anything.
Time dragged on.
I cursed the fates—and I swore, one day, I would get my revenge.
They had thrown me in this place, and somehow, some way, I would get out.
And when I did, the fates would pay.
The ones who trapped us here would pay.
They would all pay.
“That’s him! Right there!” The grating voice broke through the memory, piercing through my sore mind and yanking me back to the present.
“You’re sure?”
“Yes! See, there’s blood on his cloak!”
I lifted my head, squinting to see what all the commotion was about.
Folk were surrounding me, pointing fingers, a few even waving tools and weapons in my direction like they would wallop me if I attempted to flee.
I knitted my brow in confusion. “What’s going on?” I asked.
“You tried to kill Ginny!”
“Murderer!”
“He’s the one the King warned us about in the missive!”
Murderer? No. And what King? My head throbbed incessantly.
Certainly, Ginger wasn’t dead. She couldn’t be.
The gryphon in charge approached me slowly, his hands behind his back. I glared at him. “Don’t come any closer,” I threatened.
He paused. “It’ll be better for everyone if you come without any trouble.”
“Come where?”
He revealed his hands, and what he was carrying.
Shackles.
My throat went dry.
“No,” I whispered.
“Come with me, Shade. At least until we get this sorted out.”
“No,” I repeated. It was the only word I could conjure.
If Ginger really was dead… and these folk thought I had something to do with it… dread pooled in my stomach.
“I’ll use force if I have to,” he warned.
A strange sorrow pinched his expression. He wasn’t happy about this situation, either.
For the briefest of moments, I thought about springing to my feet and ripping his head off.
But Ginger would be upset with me if I killed her beloved friends.
If she was still alive.
My mate. She never even got the chance to love me back.
The fight drained out of me.
Without another word, I held my arms out in front of me and allowed the mayor to take me away.