Chapter 13
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Snow flew around me, and every rational thought inside me told me that Kole would be furious if he knew what I was doing, but I couldn’t not follow in the direction the warrior had gone. If something happened to him . . . If something hurt him . . .
I had no explanation for the panic that squeezed my lungs, so I shoved those feelings aside.
Besides, I was of sound mind enough to know that while I wasn’t as large and as skilled as Kole, I also wasn’t a liability.
If needed, my magic could overpower anything in the realm, including a deadly creature from Silventine Wood that had wandered too far south and was slowly making its way back to its home.
Cold air rushed past me, my breath labored in my mad dash, but my magic shot out of me hot and bright. I unleashed it since nobody was about. It flowed out of me like a charged, invisible river.
A sense of release traveled through me, as though my magic were breathing a sigh of ecstasy for the first time in many seasons. Finally, I’d opened the door to its cage and allowed it to do what the gods had blessed me with.
Heady power strummed around me, and as I sprinted, my magic assessed every living thing in my vicinity just waiting to take control of them, command them, and force them to do whatever I wanted at my slightest bidding.
Lifeform after lifeform registered in my mind.
A home with four souls I’d never met before was off to my right.
Three sleeping smaller souls, likely children, were asleep near a home’s hearth to my left.
One soul was awake, and he was doing something in the home around the bend.
My feet pounded into the thickening snow as I searched for the essence that my magic had registered as Kole. Each life, each flicker of a heartbeat, had its own magical flavor. I’d encountered thousands of fae in my lifetime, most of whom I couldn’t recall or identify.
But Kole’s soul was new and fresh, and his magical flavor had been strong, making him easier to seek.
Wind whipped through my hair, tossing my braid behind me as my cloak’s hood flapped against my back. The end of the town’s street neared, and the dark Wood lay ahead.
Another snarl rose in the distance, carrying through the night sky. It was faint but eerily similar to what I’d heard earlier.
Wherever it’d come from, it was no longer near the village. Perhaps Kole had chased it into the Wood. Or maybe it’d already attacked him, and Kole lay dying on the Wood’s floor as the creature devoured him.
My stomach heaved, and my pace picked up. Arms pumping, I shot forward, thankful once again that pants adorned my legs.
The Wood grew closer, and my magic searched and sought.
Concentrating, I pushed it farther ahead of me, stretching my mental fingers all around me and in every direction.
Dozens and dozens of magical lifeforces answered my call.
Animals. Wildlings. Siltenites. Within seconds, I had a location on every single fairy within the village.
I extended my reach even farther.
I filtered through everything, shifting through each magical essence as I sought Kole’s.
A hum of familiarity abruptly hit me, nearly making me stagger. There. He was just northwest of me in the Wood, about a quarter mile away. He was alive—my magic was able to tell me that much—but around him, I detected something . . .
Prodding, my mental fingers assessed the creature more just as the Wood loomed. I’d never felt anything like it. Darkness. Evil intent. Unbelievable power. And . . . no heartbeat?
I struggled to understand that, especially since my magic told me it was alive, yet I couldn’t get a firm grasp on what it was and how it could be alive without a beating heart.
Still, I assessed it more and immediately wanted to mentally recoil given the icy film that encased the creature’s mind.
Eww . . .
One thing I was certain of was that whatever Kole was stalking through the Wood was not something I’d ever encountered before, and the warrior was progressively moving closer to it, not even hesitating, and he was entirely on his own.
I reached the Wood and leaped into the foliage in the same beat, activating my sensory magic simultaneously to sharpen my eyesight and allow me to see more easily in the swamp of trees so I could increase my pace.
Leaves tore against my calves. Vines tried to obscure my path, but I ducked and moved, not slowing.
My lungs burned from my continued sprint, but I kept it up.
I was growing closer to Kole and the creature, likely making a racket in the process, but maybe whatever that thing was, it would think twice before pouncing on Kole if it knew that two powerful fae were in its midst. Because, while I didn’t know what it was, my magic told me that it wasn’t stupid.
The opposite, in fact. I would have bet rulibs that the creature was quite intelligent.
I closed in on their location. Kole stopped. My magic locked onto him, monitoring his every breath.
The warrior’s aura soared, and I knew he’d either heard me coming or somehow detected me.
It didn’t matter. I wasn’t going to retreat, but I did slow down.
Barreling toward the strange creature wasn’t wise.
For all I knew, before I got a firm grasp on its mind, it would leap right over me and attack me from behind.
I slowed to a jog, then stopped completely. Harsh breaths lifted my chest, my gasps audible, and it nearly killed me, but I quieted those too until I breathed silently. Still, my heartbeat pounded painfully.
Keeping my sensory magic activated, I scanned the area.
I stilled.
There it was.
Whatever the thing was, it’d stopped in the Wood, standing frozen, and it was only fifty paces ahead of me. Brush obscured some of it, so while I knew it was there, I couldn’t see it clearly.
Kole was near it too, hidden behind a tree, but the edge of his shoulder was visible. Amazingly, the large warrior was nearly undetectable in the Wood despite his size.
I felt, rather than saw, the creature’s interest shift to me. Something burned in its mind. An awareness. A knowing.
It’d known Kole was there too—my magic told me that much—but now that it sensed me, a new excitement grew in it.
What in the realm?
It was the only thought I had before a snarl emitted from the creature, that same stomach-lurching foreign-sounding growl that it’d made back in the village.
My blood ran cold. Everything inside me told me to retreat, but I sank lower into the brush, and it was only then I realized the Wood had gone silent. Completely silent. Just like the other night.
“Shite.” The curse left me a second before the thing’s ear-piercing scream wrenched through the air.
Before my mind could process what was happening, the creature shot toward me. It moved at blinding speed, blurring through the Wood so quickly that even with my eyesight activated and my mental magic on high alert, I could barely track it.
I staggered backward and gasped just as Kole lunged from behind the tree, sword raised, teeth bared.
He met the creature mid-stride, halting its run for me with the swing of his blade.
I stumbled back even more and nearly fell. They were only ten paces away, and Kole had slowed the thing enough for me to fully see it, and a thing was the only way to describe it.
It stood on two legs and looked like a fairy . . . but it wasn’t. Sunken eyes. Hollowed cheeks. Pale and taut skin. Long fangs. And when it swung its arm toward Kole, black claws tipped each finger. Yet it wore ragged, dirty clothes.
Stars Above!
The warrior leaped back just before those claws tore his belly open. Kole’s magic surged, cycling around him in growing intensity.
The creature snarled again and ripped its clawed hand toward Kole once more, but the warrior became a whirling mass of limb, power, and steel. He slashed and slayed, keeping the creature from moving any closer to me, and his utter might filled the air around him.
For a moment, all I could do was stare. The male was pure wrath. Pure power. Kole moved in a song of indescribable beauty. Every twist of his limbs, dance of his feet, swing of his hand, was all precisely coordinated in an effortless, liquid rhythm.
Kole was death.
Powerful might.
Savage vengeance.
Primal skill.
I’d never seen anyone fight like him.
And the only reason I could see anything at all was due to my sensory magic. Otherwise, it would have all been a blur.
A tornado of magic swirled around the warrior as he kept the creature at bay, and every time I thought for certain the creature’s speed would allow him to escape, Kole was there, matching him stride for stride.
Kole’s sword abruptly arced through the air, and a surprised snarl tore from the creature’s lips just as the warrior’s blade met its neck.
A thump came.
I gasped.
The creature’s head rolled on the forest floor, then a tangle of branches crackled as its body fell limply into the foliage beside it.
Dazed, I stood mutely, breaths coming so quickly that I began to feel lightheaded. But I made myself gulp in a lungful of air, just as the warrior swung toward me, his eyes blazing and pure rage emitting from his aura.
“Primelle Hollaran,” he said in a deadly quiet voice. “What the fuck are you doing out here?”
I held up my hands in surrender because Kole was mad. Really, really mad.
The warrior stalked toward me, and I backed up, nearly stumbling again in the brush. “Kole, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to interfere, but when you ran off, I panicked, and—”
I stopped. And what exactly? How exactly did I explain to him that an unreasonable instinct had come over me, and I’d been helpless to resist it?
“The Stone is making me act crazy.” I blurted. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have followed you.”
“The Stone,” he growled.
“Yes, the Stone. I’m sorry.” Eyesight still enhanced by my magic made every thunderous line visible upon the warrior’s face. He was glaring at me, for once not even trying to hide his expression.
In my next breath, he closed the distance between us completely, his aura pulsing and rising, and then he was right in front of me, crowding my space.
I gulped, but I held my ground.
When he raised his hand, I flinched and automatically took another step back.
He seethed. “Do you really think I would hit you?” He grasped my chin with his raised hand and angled my head both ways as he looked me over. “It didn’t hurt you?”
“No, it never came near me.”
“There wasn’t another one anywhere that you encountered on your way here?”
“No, not that I saw.” Or felt. I was certain the headless creature behind him was the only one.
“Wait.” I shook my head. “There are more of those things?” It briefly struck me that perhaps the one I’d heard the other night had already been killed by Kole.
Maybe this was a different one of the same species.
He finally released my chin, and his nostrils flared, but he stepped back and used a burst of self-cleansing magic to clean his sword. The black blood coating it disappeared.
Dear Goddess, black blood. What in the realm had black blood?
“Kole, what is that thing?” I wrapped my arms around myself, and I suddenly realized it was still snowing, and the temperature was even colder in the Wood.
A shiver struck me. “Is it from Silventine Wood? Did it escape that forest?” I tried not to panic at the thought of the Wishing Stone potentially landing there, resulting in me encountering these creatures on a daily basis.
“It’s something you should never hope to encounter again.” He gave me his back and stalked toward the creature, not pausing until he stood over its body.
A gust of Kole’s air element flowed out of him, and the creature’s decapitated head lifted in the wind and fell on top of its headless body.
A flash of moonlight penetrated the Wood’s canopy, and I recoiled when razor-sharp fangs appeared in its dead gaping mouth, but the creature had ears like fae. Pointed and sculpted in a way that were similar to mine, but so many other aspects of it were different, not fae at all.
“Kole, what is that thing?” I asked again and stepped closer to him.
“Stay back.” The warrior swung toward me, his eyes glittering in a way that even someone without my magic would have been able to detect in the dark. “Don’t come any closer. It could infect you.”
“Infect me?” I stopped, and another shiver struck me.
He swung back around, then pulled something from his pocket. He flicked it a few times, and a spark appeared at its end, but it went out as quickly as it’d appeared. He did it again, and another spark flamed, but as before, it extinguished.
A frustrated hiss tore from him, and his heightened aura formed a thick cloud around him.
“What . . .” I licked my lips, which had suddenly gone dry. “What are you doing?”
“I need to burn the body. Otherwise—” He shook his head. “I need to burn it.”
I took a step forward. “I can help with that.”
He cocked his head in my direction, but in a swirl of magic, I called upon my elemental power, and a stream of fire appeared in front of me. I molded it into a ball. “Stand back.”
Surprisingly, he did as I said without questioning me. Once he was clear of the thing, I flung my fireball at it.
The creature ignited, and the sickening stench of burning flesh filled the Wood. I gagged, covering my mouth as the putrid aroma of decay swirled in the air.
Walking backward, Kole slowly moved toward me, never once taking his eyes off the hideous thing.
It was only after my fire had burned it completely and all that remained was a pile of ash that began to scatter on the wind, that I allowed my fire to extinguish. Once done, only a charred patch of soil remained on the Wood’s floor. It was as if the creature had never existed at all.
Kole nodded his head in approval. “Time to go.”
I’d thought that maybe his rage had calmed since he’d grown so quiet, but one look at his mouth that remained tightened in a thin line and one peek at his blazing blue irises, and I realized his rage hadn’t cooled at all.
No, it’d been simmering, and I wondered if I was about to be on the receiving end of it.