How to Woo the Undead (Rosemont Manor #3)

Once upon a murder

“Where do you think you’re going!” The snarl was lobbed like a rock, pummeling into the center of her back.

It embedded its sharp edges into her flesh between her shoulder blades.

All she could do was focus on the way it hurt as panic spiked in her veins.

The gash on her right eyebrow bled profusely, coating her eyelashes and painting her world in crimson.

Moon high in the sky, the trees were mocking shadows she did her best to avoid with every jerk of her body.

Her feet slapped against damp leaves. The sound of ragged breathing echoed off the obsidian tree bark around her.

Something moved in front of her and there was only a split second to make the right decision.

She chose wrong.

Hands closed around her neck. Ripped backward, her wings caught on the gnarled tree branches like they had fingernails carving into the thin membrane.

Blood and pixie dust spilled all over the forest floor.

Kicking out her feet did nothing to dislodge her from the three men who hunted her.

Out of King’s Fall, they chased her past any point she would have recognized…

past the protective shield that would have alerted the Enforcers to her fate.

Screaming out in rage, her fingers clawed at any and all sets of hands she could get ahold of.

One of them had her by the hair, one by the base of her wings, the third came in front of her and snatched one of her kicking legs.

She planted it into his gut and dug her heel into his soft belly.

He fell to the ground with a grunt, but the one with her hair tore out a chunk near her right temple.

She shrieked. Thrashing did nothing as they took her to the forest floor.

Leaves, damp and rotted, were scattered up and over her head.

Despite the summer sun that morning, the forest was dead and cold.

The soil that touched the open flesh wounds on her back stung.

Its gritty, frosty texture biting into the places where they’d already grabbed her the first time. Has it already forgotten me?

Have the trees abandoned me?

She’d ran for hours…she couldn’t recall the last time she ran that hard or that fast. Her only thought was getting out. Getting free from their clawing fingers. Getting away from them.

“Let me go!” She dropped all her body weight to the ground, dislodging the man’s hands from her mangled wings.

With the last drop of magic she had, she set off an explosion of force between her and them.

One of them howled in anguish as she scrambled away.

Fingers bloodied, she clawed her way out of the leaves, climbing to her feet.

Only a boot came down across her knee at the exact moment she tried to stand.

Crunch! A wail of pain escaped her lungs as she felt the bone snap.

Her hip hit the hard ground with little mercy as the man's silver eye pierced through the darkness filling her vision.

He struck again. His boot to her thigh, he practically jumped on it till she felt the pain radiate up through her waist into her sternum.

Breathless, she swatted at him but the only thing at her disposal were leaves.

He grunted and panted like a rabid beast in the midst of a laborious hunt.

The silver eyed man dropped to his knees, slapping away her hands.

She caught him by the cheek with a jagged nail and felt pieces of his flesh rip free.

I’ll water this forest with your blood. I promise.

Then one of them punched her in the head.

All around her were swirling wisps of light and haunted faces embedded in dark trees.

The world spun as one of them pulled her left arm.

A spike, more like a sharpened stake, pierced her palm and she couldn’t even scream in pain.

All the air in her lungs was gone. One of them kept his boot to the spike, even as she tried to tug her hand free—damned be the consequences.

The second had her right hand, dragging it out until he pinned her to the forest floor with a second spike.

This one wasn’t held down. They didn’t care if she freed that hand.

Not as he grabbed her by the hair and forced her head still to watch the silver-eyed man lean over her.

“Enough! Enough!”

For the first time in her life, she feared for her life.

Eyes wide she memorized the hardened face in front of her.

Unlike the other two, who were faceless and voiceless, he’d been the one to yell at her.

The one to call her name at the edge of the city and mocked her as he hunted her.

An oval face, scruffy with salt and pepper hair, a strong nose and three claw marks down his right eye.

A silver orb glowed in the eye socket, staring deep into her soul.

He was backlit by the full moon. A looming shadow, growing ever bigger by the moment as he pulled out a simple hunter’s knife.

The jagged edges glinted in the moonbeam as he held it above her.

Everything slowed down, and for a moment, she was stuck in a snapshot of her existence. All the tiny moments she took for granted the last few years, replaying as a mockery. This is the end.

The blade was quick, carving through the night air.

She felt it bury itself in her chest. Crack!

The blade broke through bone and cleaved her flesh apart.

Her heart got one last panicked lurch before it stopped beating all together.

She watched as he yanked the blade out, then thrust it back into her chest, ensuring the last thing burned into her corneas was him covered in her blood.

“Sir, do you hear that?” Austin asked, pulling on the reins of his Nightmare.

The flaming horse whinnied, stomping his obsidian hooves against the cold, autumn soil.

Austin glanced around the woods in hopes of spotting whatever fox was cut short in a vicious battle.

He could have sworn it was a person’s scream, but he’d been wrong before…

no, he was certain—that had to be a person.

Another wail echoed off the skinny trees that were barren of any leaves.

Fall always stripped the Forbidden Forrest of life.

While the day was still warm, the nights were bitter cold.

“Yes, I do,” Sebastian Rosemont growled under his breath.

The tip of his mask’s beak pointed to the east of the manor, and the two turned their rides in that direction.

A soft orange glow from the flames of their Nightmares illuminated the inky dark of night.

When a cry of pain echoed off the trees again, Austin kicked Remmy, his steed, into action.

Flames whipping around him like a mane of hair, his nightmare galloped at three times the speed of a regular stallion.

Remmy zipped around the animated, skittering wood.

Like roaches when hit with a beam of light, the woods opened around him and his maker as they raced toward the sound.

The moon was their only companion while they searched for the sound.

Sebastian Rosemont, the Lich of King’s Fall, should be the scariest thing in the woods, but he was by far the last thing Austin would worry about.

His employer was like a lighthouse to the lost things in the world.

It wasn’t unheard of for them to come across lost travelers or confused adventurers.

Austin couldn’t count on both hands and toes anymore how many people he’d brought back to King’s Fall in the middle of the night.

Though, usually, those lost souls were happened upon… not hunted down.

Austin pulled back on his reins at the first sight of people, causing the Nightmare to rear back and slam down his hooves.

Three men scattered to the wind as Austin threw himself from the saddle.

The only thing he saw was a woman, nailed to the ground with her chest ripped open, and he grabbed the first fleeing murderer.

A skinny human whose neck snapped like a piece of celery in his massive palm.

He closed his fist around their jugular and squeezed till blood exploded between his fingers.

Bone and flesh crumpled into pieces as he opened his palm.

The other two were faster, gone within an instant. Austin lumbered through the trees for them, but they likely used a portal to disappear. Murderers! Gnashing his teeth, he snarled into the inky dark. Cowards! Yet, the fury was short-lived as he turned back to the crime scene.

Once upon a time, Sebastian Rosemont had to act as Lord Commander. Austin worked at his side during those years, helping his employer hunt down murderers, thieves, and worse. Seeing the Lich knelt beside the victim ran a shiver run down Austin’s back. Just like old times…

“Poor thing,” Sebastian tutted. He tapped a gloved finger against one of the spikes in her palms. “Come, Austin, help me free her hands.”

Austin crouched beside the woman and plucked the wood out of her palm. A nasty wound, dark and crusted, was left in its place. His eyes kept flicking back to the wound at the center of her chest. “Those monsters.”

“Murderers tend not to be gentle with their victims, you know that,” Sebastian sighed.

He was a tall, skinny man dressed from crown to toe.

A thick, leather plague doctor mask with circular lenses that were almost unfeeling in their expression and a long, curved beak.

That was his master’s face outside of the manor.

There was a hint of green around the edges and his finned ears that twitched as the Lich listened to the woods.

He climbed to his boots and rounded a tree before plucking pieces of the poor woman’s wings off a branch. “They wanted her to suffer.”

Austin shook his head in disbelief. What cruel, vicious creatures!

That’s when he brushed the long, copper tendrils from her face.

Struck wouldn’t even describe it enough.

His eyebrows shot up on his face as he stared at the prettiest face he’d ever seen…

on a dead woman. Welp, that’s probably not nice.

He grimaced for only a moment before the feeling was gone.

Wait, I’m dead. Well, undead. Kinda dead?

Does that count? Brushing the back of his knuckle against her cheek, he exhaled heavily. “She’s like a flower.”

“What was that?” Sebastian chirped curiously across from Austin. “How so?”

“She’s so pretty,” Austin confessed, glancing up at his employer. “It’s sad seeing her crushed like this. Like when flowers get stepped on in the woods.”

“Hmm.”

Austin wasn’t one to question Sebastian, but he wasn’t sure where the inquisitive humming was coming from. Or why Sebastian studied the dead woman, head cocked an inch to the side. With a tap, tap, tap to the side of his mask, Sebastian paced around the woman once more.

“Sir?” Austin croaked.

“Yes, actually. I think she’ll do nicely. She’s fae, so she’ll take a little bit of detangling, but outside of that bludgeoning to her sternum, she’s perfectly intact. I’ll need to replace her heart, and the bones will need to be mended. I think I have just the thing! You’re a genius, my boy.”

“Thank you sir.” Austin beamed only to have his face fall immediately after. “Why am I genius?”

“Come, come, scoop her up. Best to get most of the work done while she’s still fresh!

” Sebastian clapped his gloves together, striding back up to his steed.

Austin, not one to ever question his creator’s instructions, hesitated for only a moment.

Then his limbs moved of their own accord.

First, he closed her eyes, letting her lay there as if she were sleeping and not brutally murdered.

He cradled the back of her head as tenderly as he could.

Tucking her limp arms into her lap, he scooped up her legs with his other arm.

Holding her was the priority, so he took the reins of Remmy and tucked the leather loops onto his belt.

A mere suggestion, as Remmy could easily break free if he wants.

But his steed was more interested in sniffing the thick, silky tresses of the dead woman in his arms.

And thus, he carried the corpse they found in the woods with him back to Rosemont Manor…

which honestly wasn’t all that strange for the assistant to the Lich of King’s Fall.

It was, however, the first time, Austin ever looked down at a woman and felt a stir in his torso.

Something fluttered deep in the crater of his chest.