Chapter 20
Twenty
Fawn watched the camp from the shadows, trembling.
Zax laid a hand on her shoulder. Fawn looked up at him and wished that they were far enough away, she could admit that it wasn’t fear—it was adrenaline. Some strange, twisted part of her was excited about what they were about to do.
But they were too close to the camp. Whispering would ruin the element of surprise.
So Fawn held herself back, as she had been doing for so much of her life, and walked silently into the camp the group had set up just beyond the rocky mountain path she and Zax had walked on the way to his brother’s cave.
They didn’t notice her at first. The two hunters were sitting close together next to the fire, trading strips of jerky. Errol and Chastity were sitting on a log on the other side of the fire, re-bandaging Errol’s injured hand.
They all had their back to her. Fawn took a moment to bask in it.
The short span of time before the prey realized what they were.
Then again, Fawn considered as she came to a stop behind them, they wouldn’t realize it when they turned around.
They probably wouldn’t realize they were prey until it was too late to do anything about it.
Fawn cleared her throat.
Errol startled so badly he fell off the log and landed on his injured hand, swearing loudly. Chastity almost followed suit, the roll of bandages slipping into the dirt. The hunters jumped up, each of them reaching for their crossbows.
“Wait,” Fawn said desperately. She raised her hands, doing her best to look like the meek, scared woman she had been before she sprained her ankle. “I’ve made a huge mistake. I want to come back.”
One of the hunters scoffed. Errol narrowed his eyes, which were watering from landing on his injured hand.
Fawn looked at Chastity. “I thought about our talk. And something… happened, with the Skullstalker. It opened my eyes to what a monster he truly is. I don’t belong with him. I belong here, with you. My family.”
“You didn’t seem too eager to come back before,” Chastity replied. Her voice was slow and cautious. But Fawn could hear something behind it: hope. Even after all that had happened, she believed that Fawn would come back. After all, what else would a woman do?
Fawn took her hands, squeezing the bandages between them. “I was wrong. I was a fool, thinking I could be more than I am.”
“And what are you?” Errol asked icily.
Fawn steeled herself. Then she turned to Errol, making her expression as pleading and simpering as her facial muscles allowed.
“Yours,” she said with a tremulous smile.
Errol grunted. He stepped over the log, staring down at her with that condescending gaze that used to make her skin crawl.
But for the first time, there was something underneath the condescension: suspicion.
He had seen what she truly was, and he had the wounded hand to show for it. He would not trust her easily.
One of the hunters coughed. He had his net gun in his hands, loading the net slowly.
“Errol,” he began.
Errol shushed him. He didn’t take his gaze from Fawn, watching her as if he could pick out a lie if he only stared hard enough.
“Then you will lead us to him?” Errol asked. “You will lead us to your would-be husband and watch as we kill him?”
Fawn nodded fervently. “I will. I’ll do it gladly!”
Chastity’s hands twitched in Fawn’s grip. She looked at her son expectantly. But Errol’s gaze did not waver from Fawn, who let go of Chastity to grab his shirt.
“Please,” she said. “I have nothing else but you. I… I don’t know where else I would go. I belong with you, in that dear little village that’s waiting for us.”
Something flickered through Errol’s face. Longing, perhaps. Desire for that simple life where he lorded over everything and everyone in that pathetic village. But then it was gone, and he reached up to cover Fawn’s hands where they were knotted in his shirt.
“Fawn,” he said softly, stroking his bandaged hand against her palm. “Sweet thing. Do you really think I’m that stupid?”
Fawn let her shaky smile drop. She gave herself a few more moments of staring at him, as if all the hope was draining out of her. Then she let out a dry sob and turned to run.
Errol held her fast. But his grip was weak, and Fawn was strong. Stronger than this puny man ever knew. She drove her forehead into his hands, and he released her with a pained shout.
The hunters brought up their crossbows.
“What are we doing?” one of them bellowed.
“Just shoot,” the other one snarled.
A bolt spun past Fawn’s head and slammed into the stone wall next to her. She ran faster, unable to stop a fearful glee from taking over her face as she leapt onto the mountain path.
She could see the shadows already. Thin wisps of them were reaching from an offshoot path, more energized than before. They had not had such action in a long time. And Fawn was going to give them more.
“Not the net,” she heard one of the hunters yell. “Oi! Not yet, you daft shit! Wait for the monster!”
Errol was gaining on her. Fawn could hear his breath, ragged and furious as he chased her down.
They were almost at the shadows. Fawn let herself slow and pretended to stumble.
Errol leapt on her with a triumphant cry. He knocked her to the ground, his eyes streaming as his hand bled through his bandages.
Fawn fumbled for the knife in her pocket. Errol grabbed her wrist and squeezed until she dropped it, sharp pain shooting up her arm.
“There,” Errol said, a vein bulging in his forehead. “What will you do now, hmm? You little bitch. You think you’re too good for me? You’re dirt on my shoe. You don’t even deserve to lick the dirt on my shoe!”
“And yet,” Fawn said, strained. “You wanted me as a wife.”
Errol snarled with his useless, blunt teeth.
“Only for my brother,” he said, choking up. “It was what Renly would have wanted.”
“I couldn’t give less of a shit what that small-dick shithead would have wanted,” Fawn admitted.
The expression that crossed Errol’s face was worth him pushing her harder into the rocky path. It was the disbelieving expression of a dog owner whose pet had been obedient for so long, only to piss all over his new rug.
“You insolent little bitch,” Errol hissed.
One of the hunters yelled from down the road: “OI!”
Errol’s head snapped up just in time to watch Zax sprint out and bowl the hunters over before sprinting full tilt for the shadowy path just above where Fawn lay. Fawn craned her head to watch him, but Zax didn’t stop. He ran right past her and into the shadowy path.
Errol’s terror turned to shocked glee as Zax ran past, vanishing into the shadowy path with the hunters on his tail.
“Looks like your monstrous husband has decided you aren’t worth it after all,” Errol declared. “That makes two of us.”
He reached for the knife he had twisted out of her hand. He wasn’t just stopping at taunts, Fawn realized with faint surprise. He was actually going to kill her.
He raised his knife over Fawn’s chest.
The hunters started to scream.
Errol’s triumphant grin faltered. He looked over at the shadowy path they had vanished into, and the fear trickled back into his face as he noticed the dark tendrils snaking out from the path and creeping toward him.
“What’s this?” Errol demanded. “What is that?”
“The forbidden mountain,” Fawn said. “You know it, Errol. We all whispered about it as children. It’s coming for you.”
With that, she bared her teeth and showed him what she had Zax’s brother do to her when they returned to his cave: her flat teeth sharpened into fangs, her fragile nails growing into hard points.
Fawn grinned. Then she lunged up and bit a chunk out of Errol’s stubbled cheek.
Errol screamed. He tried to climb off of her, but she had her claws in him now: long, thick claws embedded deep in his arms. They had gone back to Fawn’s new brother-in-law and asked for a few embellishments, and he had bestowed them gladly.
Fawn was the proud owner of a set of her very own fangs and claws, if she saw fit to unsheathe them.
Fawn bit a second chunk out of his chin. Blood filled her mouth. It tasted foul, but Fawn didn’t care. Finally, she understood what Zax had felt when he ripped apart her puny, loathsome husband.
It was beautiful.
Errol shrieked and writhed, kicking desperately at her. Fawn struggled up—the spell had not given her Skullstalker strength—and dragged him toward the shadowy path where the hunters’ yells were growing faint.
The tendrils were stretching faster, more copious, strands latching onto Errol’s clothes and skin and yanking. Not enough to drag him into the wall of shadows that waited ahead, but enough to tear his skin and make him scream even louder.
Fawn took a deep breath. Then she stepped into the shadows, dragging Errol with her.
The shadows swarmed around them, dark and hungry.
They did not leave Fawn alone, as they did to Skullstalkers, but neither did they rip into her like they were doing to the three men stuck inside the shadows.
They recognized her for what she was: not mortal, not Skullstalker, but something entirely different. Nothing they could consume.
The hunters were pinned in place, slowly being devoured. Fawn retracted her claws from Errol’s skin and stood back, the darkness quickly washing over him until she could no longer see the damage.
The air was thick with screams. The shadows rushed over Fawn, cold and blinding. She closed her eyes, some of the discomfort from the first time she had been carried through this place.
Then a large pair of arms closed around her. The shadows pulled back, and Fawn looked up to see Zax staring down at her, his face so full of love she almost didn’t notice the viscera dripping from his jaw.
Fawn pulled him down into a bloody kiss. By the time Zax had licked her mouth clean, the shadows were silent.
Fawn shivered. “Come on. It’s so cold in here.”
Zax nodded and led her out. The shadowy tendrils reached for them, then stopped as they stepped into the main path.
Chastity was waiting beyond the shadow’s reach, no doubt beckoned by the screaming. Tears slid down her wrinkled face, a distraught sob ripping out of her as she spotted them.
“What did you do?” she croaked. “What are you?”
Her gaze dropped to Fawn’s face, still smeared with Errol’s blood. Then her stained dress and her bloody fingers. Chastity gasped, raising a shaking hand to point accusingly.
“You,” she hissed.
Fawn sighed, genuinely apologetic. “Chastity—”
“Get away from me!” Chastity screamed. “You—you monster! You’re both monsters!”
She turned and ran, stumbling over a rock before righting herself and fleeing down the path.
Zax turned to her expectantly. But Fawn did not want her to chase her down; they didn’t have to. Chastity was no threat. Even if she rallied a group to avenge her sons, Fawn and her husband would be long gone when she tried to find them again.
Fawn’s ankle twinged. A faint hurt, but there. She sighed and gestured for Zax to lift her.
“Come,” she said again as she settled in Zax’s broad arms. “Let’s go make ourselves a new home. What would you like? Treehouse, cave, cottage?”
Zax growled contentedly and lifted her higher, nuzzling her short brown curls.
“Anything,” he said. “As long as it is with you.”