Shadow Lands (Savage Lands #6)

Brexley

The dying branches wailed from being snapped under my boots, each one a spine I cracked, a bone I broke, a life I took.

They became a symphony in my head, a sonnet of sorrow and pain.

Mixing with the bass of my heartbeat and the thunk of the box I carried drummed at my ribs, they sang with the guilt I bore with every step

I didn’t feel Warwick through our link, but I somehow sensed him out there, vibrating the earth with his anger, howling his hurt in the dark. His emotions lashed out at me like invisible whips, telling me to stop. If I did, I know he’d convince me to stay, to turn right back around into his arms.

I couldn’t.

The only safety for everyone was for me and the nectar to disappear. We were powerful separately but devastating together. Too many people wanted to use us, willing to hurt those I love—and worse, innocent bystanders—to get to me.

Trust became a precarious line when power and control were at stake.

And the person I feared the most was . . . me.

How many more would I hurt? Kill? Blood coated me, seeping through my skin to my soul.

Tad was dead. I murdered the most powerful Druid in history because he was trying to save a child.

From me.

It was like thinking you were the princess in the fairy tale only to wake up and find you were the evil queen the whole time.

The Villain.

It was why I continued to run. My legs grew weak, stumbling over streams and uphill, through dark sleeping towns, and across motorways, keeping to the shadows of night. I didn’t stop.

I ran until the sun kissed the earth, returning for a new day, my body crumbling to the ground, no longer able to take another step.

Get up! Keep going. I struggled to push myself up, my arms and legs giving out next to a stream, my face thudding into the mud, my lids shutting with exhaustion.

And I let the darkness swallow me whole.