Chapter five
Ifell but didn’t crash to the ground.
Something else did.
Locke. The mountain that had held me in his stone arms crashed to the ground beside me.
A chaotic discordance erupted around me.
There were people on horseback. Two? Three?
The dog was barking far, far off in the distance.
Shrieks and then gurgling.
Feet. Running.
And then nothing.
Blood pooled, thick and sticky, spilling over the earth like garish rivers.
Before me, the top of Locke’s head was completely severed from his bottom half. His eyeball was sliced at a diagonal that carried through his nose and to the other side of his face.
Only then did I realise a strong arm of corded muscle had caught me and was holding me up.
That’s why I hadn’t hit the ground. That’s why Locke’s blood wasn’t seeping into my knees.
The stranger turned me until I looked into blue eyes that seemed to shimmer like the sea. Dark lashes and angular brows framed them. In the failing light, I caught a glimpse of a vertical scar running through his left eyebrow and down his cheek.
His hood slipped down as he tipped his head back and looked around us, surveying. His dark hair was pushed back with loose strands escaping to frame his face.
And his ears. They were pointed like mine.
He was fae.
My heart was like a thunderstorm in my chest. He was fae. The first fae I’d ever laid eyes on.
His full lips parted as if they might say something but then pulled together in a smirk. The dark stranger hauled me to my feet. My footing was unsteady, but I caught myself before I fell.
I took a shuddering breath, and I had never been more grateful for air back in my lungs. When I stood fully, I must have only reached his chest. He didn’t remove his steadying hand.
My eyes craned upwards, past his broad, hard chest, to see those blue eyes again. And then I heard something behind me.
Scrambling around on the ground was Gold Teeth. I’d forgotten he was there.
The axis of the world had tilted, and all the terrible things that had just happened had tumbled into a corner, out of the reaches of my mind, and only this dark stranger remained fixed in my vision.
“Don’t need protecting?” the dark stranger purred through a smug smile.
I started at his question and took in the sight of his clothes. I couldn’t be sure they were the same.
But he must be the same person. The stance, the set of his shoulders. The velvet chords of his voice. Those lips.
He’d stopped me outside the tavern. What in the hells was he doing here?
I wasn’t sure I was the type to believe in coincidence or fate. Had he followed me? Maybe he’d heard the screams?
I hadn’t answered him, but his gaze didn’t leave mine; his hands were still steadying me. And I didn’t flinch from the contact. He was a stranger, yes. But it felt different somehow to Gold Teeth and his company. A soft tremble hammered through me.
Would he hurt me? I didn’t dare ask the question aloud.
His gaze lifted behind me. “Don’t.” He threw the single word to Gold Teeth. The command in the dark stranger’s voice was inescapable, and Gold Teeth froze in place.
“Take her,” Gold Teeth spat through a mouthful of blood. “She’s yours. She’s got nothing of value. But you can have her. We were done.” The lies tripped from his foul tongue like loose teeth slipping from a rotting mouth.
What Gold Teeth had been about to do to me, I didn’t want to think about. But he hadn’t been about to just let me go.
He shifted despite the warning the stranger had given him, and the adamyte clinked under his weight as he tried to manoeuvre himself to hide it.
The stranger looked down at me briefly, as if checking I could stay upright before he removed his arm.
In his other hand was a devastating claymore, slick with blood that I knew was Locke’s. The blood was nearly as striking as the pommel inlaid with a purple and teal gem the size of an apple.
Before the stranger turned on Gold Teeth, he squeezed the handle of his sword until the leather wrapped around it groaned.
“Dark Tempest already tasted blood tonight, and yet you move still?” He said the name like it was precious to him as he allowed the crimson blood that painted his blade to drip.
He turned slowly and then moved faster than I thought possible.
“Gahhh! You bastard! I said you could have her.”
I turned to see a dagger protruding from Gold Teeth’s hand as it hovered over the adamyte.
My eyes went wide, and blood pumped to my feet. Run! My body wanted to give in to the terror and flee. The dark stranger had flung the blade with lightning speed, his other hand still gripping the claymore.
“I don’t need you to tell me what is mine.” His voice was like liquid night.
But I was struggling to feel panic and fear now. Maybe some part of me revelled in the agony Gold Teeth felt.
The stranger strode to Gold Teeth and knocked his impaled hand to one side with a black boot to reveal the adamyte. The shards were like blades of glass, tinkling as they were shuffled.
“They’re hers!” Bleeding from multiple wounds and still selling me out. “You can have them. I’m leaving.”
With borderline boredom in his tone, the dark stranger said, “You’re not leaving.”
Ice settled into the spring air with his words.
“And even if you could, Denora is an excellent shot,” the stranger said.
The thwang of a bow sounded from an archer on horseback. Gold Teeth now had an arrow buried in his other hand, pinning him to the ground.
The archer had pointed ears too. Her short dark hair fell forward over her brow and was shorn at the back. Her wide doe eyes were piercing, olive green and fixed on her prey.
Circling the camp was a third. A male. He was rugged, whereas the dark stranger was sharp and deadly. He was every bit of brawn that shone through in his hulking musculature. The three of them were formidable to behold, let alone fight against.
I almost pitied Gold Teeth and his cohort.
Almost.
The male on horseback swung a sword as he rode down one of the tattoo twins. A harrowing crunch sounded as his blade crashed through a spine until it jutted through the other side of a chest.
There was nothing in my stomach, but it tried to empty again. Funny how Locke’s head hadn’t caused any reaction. My thoughts snagged uselessly on that for a moment. I’d been so glad to be free of him that I didn’t spare a thought for his well-being as his head rolled.
The dark stranger cocked his head to one side as he examined where the crystals lay.
Tugging on the reins of her mount as it shuffled, the female levelled her gaze on me, her wide eyes boring into me. Searching.
After what felt like long minutes, she tore her eyes from me with one final penetrating look. “Kaedian, what are we doing here?”
The dark stranger looked up to the female on horseback.
She lifted a brow and waited.
Gold Teeth had scrambled to his feet, but he couldn’t dislodge his hands from where they were riveted down by the dagger and now the arrow.
The dark stranger smiled.
The female just rolled her eyes.
“I’m sorry.” The stranger’s ringed hand flew to his chest. “I left my blade here. How careless of me.” He pulled the dagger from Gold Teeth’s hand with a disgusting wet noise as the blood poured from the hole it left.
He crouched next to the cowering man with deliberate slowness.
Gold Teeth was doing his best to pull his arrow-pinned hand free now with his ruined one, but it was a mess of blood, slick and sticky.
Without warning, the stranger landed his sword blade right down on Gold Teeth’s wrist.
The severed hand, still impaled by the bolt, lay limp in front of a screaming man.
At least both hands were free. I couldn’t pity him. Unease threatened, but I actually felt a sense of satisfaction at his dismemberment.
“Finish this,” he said to the female who was already knocking another arrow.
The stranger’s chest came to block any sight of what was happening.
I tried to shut out the sound of the gore around me as I looked into depthless eyes.
“What’s your name?” His face searched mine like there was more to the question.
I was a mix of horrified and relieved. Should I also have felt fear? Maybe I did. Maybe he did frighten me a little. But he’d also just saved me. However brutally he’d done it.
Would he hurt me next?
But I felt captivated by those oceanic eyes. Too captivated to run.
It was a difficult knot of emotions to untangle. A brutal and beautiful stranger had just saved me from a fate I didn’t want to think about.
But now I was standing face-to-face with a killer. He’d taken down Locke like he was nothing more than a lamb to slaughter. And he’d seemed to enjoy maiming Gold Teeth. It felt like it was some sort of twisted gesture proffered to me.
I hadn’t yet looked to see what had happened, but there was silence from behind the stranger now. I tried to peer past him, but a slender, ringed finger guided my chin back.
“What’s your name, peach?” he tried again.
“Imogen.” I exhaled like I’d never said my name out loud. It felt new on my tongue as I said it to him.
“Are these really yours?” The adamyte crystals looked small in his open palm. I went to take them, but he pulled his hand back and closed his fingers around the shards.
“Those are mine. Yes. Now give them back.” Was he trying to rob me too? Great. A demonically handsome thief.
“Where did you get them? Did you find or buy them?” He was examining a shaft against the growing twilight sky. Tilting his chin up only highlighted the staggering planes of his cheekbones and jawline. “Or steal them for yourself?” He levelled a penetrating gaze at me.
I couldn’t tell him—or anyone—where I found the adamyte. To get to that part of the Banes would take anyone right through Shadowfall. And I’d just seen this male cut down a beast and a monster like it was child’s play. He would tear through my home with a single swing of his sword.
I could lie, I suppose.