Anathema (The Eating Woods)

I breathed a tearful chuckle, staring down at the beautiful eclipse of Zevander’s eyes. “Hi.”

I hadn’t imagined that merely pressing my palms to his would’ve incited the flame, but I could feel it drawing into me, that delicious heat warming my bones as I commanded it.

His body had stopped convulsing, and while his pupils remained dilated, the sliver of gold and orange had begun to widen, replacing the eerie blackness from before.

Confusion slid over his bewildered expression, and he jolted upright, turning away from me as he swung his legs over the edge of the bed. The muscles in his back twitched, and he bent forward, cupping his head in his hands.

“Zevander?” I asked with caution, not entirely certain if he was lucid.

“What did I do?” He ran his hands back and forth over his skull, mussing his hair.

Frowning at his back, I shook my head. “What do you mean? You did nothing.”

“Your eyes … they’re more silver than before.”

Touching a finger to my cheek, I glanced around the room for a mirror, but there was nothing to see my reflection. “I’m not sure why.” Elowen had said that only death could break the spell. Perhaps her death? Eyes clamped, I shook my head, banishing the creeping visuals of her exploding to dust at my hand. Not now.

“I hurt you,” he said, his voice hoarse.

“You never touched me, Zevander. Not once.” The way his body trembled, his muscles tense and distressed, I wanted to touch him. Comfort him. I reached out to him, but paused. Unwilling to chance his rejection right then, I pushed to my hands and knees instead. “I’m going to get you some water.”

He neither moved, nor acknowledged me, as I slid off the bed and made my way to the other room. Rifling through cupboards, I found a cup, a clean rag, and from the counter I took the pitcher of water that Elowen had filled earlier. I carried the supplies back to the room to find he hadn’t moved at all, still cradling his head in his hands. After setting everything down on the table beside his weapons, I poured the sulfur-smelling contents of the pitcher into the cup.

“You must be horribly dehydrated.” Holding it out to him, I watched his chest expand and contract with deep breaths, as if he were trying to calm himself. I desperately wanted to ask him what had him so rattled, but I decided to wait until he’d had a chance to catch his breath.

He reached for the cup and sniffed it, crinkling his nose. Well water. Nothing like the crisp, clean water I’d had in Aethyria. He tipped it back and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “I’ll take the liquor, instead.”

With a nod, I padded out of the room and returned with the bottle of liquor Elowen had given him the night before.

Hand trembling, he poured it into the cup and swallowed it all in one gulp.

The wash basin still sat at the bedside, and I dipped the cloth into the water, squeezing off the excess. “May I?” I asked, holding it up to him.

Gaze trailing to mine, he sat upright, and I pressed the cloth to his face. He kept his eyes on me all the while, as I dabbed the cool cloth over his forehead, to his cheek and neck.

In the quiet between us, my thoughts got the best of me, and I imagined him never waking from that spell. Being alone in this cottage, day after day, with those creatures pacing in the yard. Waiting for the opportunity to get inside. The rims of my eyes stung with the threat of tears, and I quickly looked away, dipping the cloth for fresh water. I cleared my throat, “I didn’t know if you …” The words refused to come forth, as I fought to hold back my emotions.

Massive arms wrapped around me, dragging me down to the bed beside him. His body still shook as he held me against him. He didn’t move, just breathed, and I didn’t fight his suffocating grip, but let him hold onto me. Quiet tears of relief spilled down my temples.

“I thought you’d left me. For good.” My voice cracked on the last two words, and I blinked back more tears. “Where did you go?”

He didn’t answer immediately, but curled his fingers into me, as if I might try to get away from him. “Hell,” he finally rasped, his voice painfully dry. “I was in Hell.”

I raised my unwrapped hand to softly caress his unmarred cheek, tears forming again. “I was so scared.”

He pushed my hair away from my face, staring down at me. Without warning, he slanted his lips over mine, and I shuttered my eyes when he kissed me. A comforting warmth surged through me, the overwhelming sense of calm and safety melting my bones. He threaded his fingers through my hair. Breaths hastened. With a grip of my thigh, he pulled me against him, caging me in his merciless and rigid embrace.

Lungs begging for air, I turned to break the kiss, but he tightened his hold, keeping us locked together. The need for air pounded against my chest, drowned by the relief that he was here. Alive and awake and kissing me.

When he finally broke away, he held my face in his palms, both of us fighting to catch our breath. “Even now, I question what is real.”

“I’m here. I’m real.” I gripped his arms, and his fingers curled into my hair.

He crushed his lips to mine again, in a more fervent kiss than the last, his hands fisting my hair. He kissed me with ruthless possession, plundering my mouth with his tongue. Angry and violent, as if he didn’t believe me. As though he were searching for clarity in our joined lips. His leg muscles flexed over my hip, drawing me into him, pressing his groin against me.

So caught up in a tempest of conflicting emotions, I mindlessly reached down to his unlaced trousers, slinking my hand to the tip of his erection.

A tight grip held me in place, and he broke from the kiss. “Don’t.”

Humiliation burned hot across my face, and I drew my hand back, remembering the scars there. “Oh, god, I’m sorry.”

As difficult as it was to move in his steely embrace, I turned away from him, the loathing I felt for myself thick in my throat.

What was I thinking?

Hands banded around me, drawing me back, as he crushed me against his chest. For a moment, he did nothing more than breathe against the back of my neck, while my head punished me for my thoughtless stupidity. “Forgive me,” he said, and I frowned.

“Forgive you?” Tears wobbled in my eyes. “I’m the one who touched you without asking.”

“And I am yours to touch, Maevyth. I crave your touch more than my next breath.” His fingers dug into my belly as he held me tight to him. “I saw visions, though … fucking horrible things. Things I can’t get out of my head. Even now, I see and feel everything. As if it lives inside of me.”

“What kinds of things?” I whispered, trying to imagine what could possibly be worse than what Elowen and I had uncovered when she’d drawn back his trousers.

He shook his head. “I will never speak them aloud.”

A needling guilt scratched at my thoughts. “I saw the scars. The metal piercings.” I swallowed back the humiliation in my throat and turned to face him. “We tried to bring your fever down. To undress you and … I saw. You’ve suffered.”

“I was young. Defenseless. I’m no longer that boy,” he said roughly, as if I thought him weak for what had happened to him.

It crushed my heart to imagine what he’d been forced to endure. The gut-wrenching stories those scars told. No, I didn’t think him weak. On the contrary.

“You must have been exceptionally strong.” I ran the pad of my thumb across his lips. “And in so much pain.”

He kicked his head to the side, rejecting my caress. “Do not pity me.”

“I can assure you, it isn’t pity that I feel for you, Zevander. I feel many things right now, but pity isn’t one of them.”

The cutting anger in his eyes dulled when he turned back to me. “What do you feel?”

I thought about it for a moment, the words messy and scattered in my head. I stared at his chest, the scars and muscles and sweat that stirred a yearning and curiosity inside me. A craving for things I shouldn’t have wanted from a man who’d suffered so much. This virile creature who made me feel safe. Who made me feel like I was home, even as we lay in a cold, dark hovel in the thick of hell. One who’d clearly been mistreated and abused.

Even if the nature of my attraction wasn’t rooted in selfish desires, but a longing to steal away his pain and give him pleasure, to make him feel good and worthy, a prickling shame persisted, strangling my words. “I don’t want to say for fear that I’ll sound like everyone who’s ever harmed you.” I lowered my gaze, not wanting to look at him.

His finger hooked my chin, forcing my eyes to his. “You will never be them.” His brows pinched to a frown, and he ran his fingers through my hair, before clenching his fist around the strands. “But I do not trust myself with you. Something took over my mind with the kind of ease that troubles me.”

“Elowen said you’d fallen into the dark space. Caligorya.”

“I’ve slipped into Caligorya before in training. This was different. This was, perhaps, the first time I’ve felt … trapped there.” The shadows in his eyes flickered and he winced, as if he were living that moment all over again. “My head is not a safe place, Maevyth. I’m losing my senses, just like Branimir. You’d do well to keep your distance.” Untangling his fingers from my hair, he turned away, but I gripped his arm.

“No.” Nails digging into his biceps, I shook my head of any meek inclinations there. My stubborn tenacity refused to accept his rejection. “I will not. You’re not leaving me alone in this place. I won’t allow it and I won’t allow you to drift off into your head again.”

A muscle in his jaw ticced with the tight clenching of his teeth. “I had no control over myself. I could’ve easily stayed in that state of mind. The things I saw … and did … I couldn’t escape it.”

“But you did. By the grace of gods or forces or fate, you escaped.”

“The gods did nothing. It was you, Maevyth. By the grace of a flitting rope that you managed to tug hard enough.”

With a hand against his cheek, I guided his anguished eyes to mine. “Should you slip into that state again, I will grab that rope with both hands and pull you back.”

The furrow in his brow deepened. “And if it doesn’t work next time?”

“I won’t let go. I promise.” I scarcely drew a breath before his lips were on mine again, stealing my breath with a kiss that sent a shock of relief through me.

Hands gripped my face as he held me imprisoned in that breathless moment, then pressed his forehead to mine. “I’ll never know what in seven hells inspired the universe to send you to me, Maevyth.”

“Some might call it a punishment,” I said, smiling.

“If this is punishment, then I welcome an eternity of suffering.” The kiss that followed was gentle and teasing in the way he merely brushed his lips across mine. “You consume me entirely, little moon witch.”

I lifted my hand to trace my fingers over his jaw, realizing they were still wrapped.

As if he’d just noticed then, he gripped my hand and frowned. “What is this?”

“I’m afraid to touch you.”

“Why?”

I glanced away, shame and guilt, once again, rising up from the murky depth of my conscience. “I took life with this hand.”

“Elowen?”

Lips pressed together, I nodded, pushing away the emotion that threatened to pull me under. How silly I must’ve looked to him. A man who took life easily. Who killed without hesitation, or remorse. “She turned into one of them, attacked me, and I grabbed her throat. The next thing I knew … my fingers blackened and … she turned to dust.” The devastation of that moment wound itself around my heart, and tears sprang to my eyes. “I’m sorry. I know I must sound foolish to you, but … killing her with my bare hands … I felt like a … monster.”

“You’re no monster.” He gripped my hand and unraveled the rag from my fingers, lifting them toward his lips as if to kiss them.

Dread tautened my muscles, and I curled my hand into a tight fist. “No. Don’t. I don’t want to hurt you.”

“The will of the wielder, Maevyth. Magic only works at your will. Remember that.” He unfurled them and kissed the tips of my fingers.

I sucked in a breath, waiting for that horrible pulsing blackness to crawl over him, just as it had in the woods. A hysterical panic churned in my stomach when the image of the inverted bird’s eyes came to mind, and I tugged at my hands to get loose. “No! Wait! Please!”

He paused, staring back at me. “You will not harm me.” Eyes on me, he shoved my fingers into his mouth, and I watched in rapt fascination as he sucked the tip of one. “Magic requires your command.”

“But I have such … intrusive thoughts. Thoughts I can’t help sometimes.”

“They’re thoughts. Not will.” He dragged my finger over the sharp edge of his teeth. “I can imagine biting into your flesh, can practically taste the blood on my tongue, but I’d sooner rip my own heart out than hurt you that way. Do you understand the difference?”

Enthralled by him, I nodded.

“Never fear your power.” He ran his thumb over my cheek, staring back at me. “Your eyes are mesmerizing.”

While part of me was curious to see them, I couldn’t bear the thought of what their change meant. “I can’t help but wonder if her death broke the spell to hide them.”

“Could have.” The way he looked at me left me struggling for breath. “You are dangerously stunning.” Still clutching my face, he seized my mouth with another kiss, and I melted into him. He skimmed his lips over my jaw to my neck and guided my murdering hand downward, inside of his trousers.

I felt his breath catch against my throat, the moment my hand made contact with his stiff length. At first, he held me there, and rested his forehead against my shoulder, his body trembling against mine.

My heart pounded, anxious and unsteady, like a planchette awaiting its possessor’s command. “Is this okay?” I asked.

He nodded against me. “I didn’t know it would feel like this.”

Knots wound in my stomach, and the niggling remorse from before crept over me, but then I felt him smile against the crook of my neck, and he squeezed his hand around mine, his muscles flexing around me as he banded his arm tight across my back, pressing me close. He let out a grunt and shifted his hips, exhaling a shaky breath against my neck. Heat pulsed against my palm where I held him, and though I hadn’t yet given a single stroke, he let out a deep, masculine moan.

A downward glance showed a silvery band of light where my hand met his flesh. A brief panic shook my nerves at the visual of hurting him, but the heat spiraled up my wrist into the familiar black ribbons of flame, as his power pulled into me, drawing me like tiny threads, tugging at my womb. A delicious sensation that had me squirming beside him.

His hand gripped mine tighter, the length and girth making it difficult to wrap my fingers around. “I’ve not allowed a woman to touch me like this in centuries.”

I silently chided myself for taking pleasure in that, wanting to slap the satisfaction right out of me after the scars I’d seen.

He finally released my hand and shoved his trousers down his thighs, guiding my palm to him once again. With his forehead pressed to mine, he stared down between us, as though enraptured by the sight of his cock in my hand.

The metal rods pressed into my palm, stirring my imagination. What they must’ve felt like inside a woman. My belly coiled at the visual of them rubbing across my most sensitive flesh. “May I touch them?” I asked, and at his nod, I let my fingers explore his swollen flesh. The smooth, blunt ends of the rods that tickled my fingertips, the soft skin that pulsed with thick veins as I skimmed them to the curved ridge of his tip.

Both hands tangled in my hair, he clutched either side of my face and kissed my forehead. “You’re driving me mad, woman.” He let out a groan, and an exhilarating weakness rippled down my spine.

His words goaded me to keep going, gently circling my finger over the tip that wept a sticky fluid. I spread it over his skin, recalling the night before when he’d sucked my arousal from his fingers. The curiosity to know what he tasted like watered my mouth.

Lost to my musings, I raised my hand to my lips, and closed my eyes, sucking away the salty flavor that coated my fingers. Opening my eyes showed him staring back at me, and I quickly lowered my hand from my face.

He seized my wrist, his gaze never veering from mine. Though he didn’t say a word, his expression was clear. Focused.

Intrigued.

The moment he released me, I slipped them into my mouth again and sucked them clean, savoring the taste that time. As I licked the last of him from my lips, I watched the satisfaction and lust darken his eyes. I reached down again, running my fingers across those rods, and he licked his own lips, staring down at me.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” he said, and curled his fist into my hair. “I don’t ever want to hurt you, Maevyth.”

“You won’t.” I leaned forward and kissed his neck, while my fingers caressed his flesh and he shuddered. Even the smallest touch seemed to affect him so profoundly. “Can I …” A flare of humiliation swelled inside of me, and I shook my head. “Never mind.”

“Can you what?”

“I want to feel them against my tongue.”

He chuckled. “These curiosities will be the death of me.” Again, he kissed my forehead. “My body belongs to you, Maevyth. It is yours.”

A thrill wound through me, as I stared at his massive, muscled form and slid my free hand over the deep ridges and hard planes of his chest. Mine. Like a vast night sky claimed by a single star. A fierce and beautiful darkness that I had neither the right nor business to call my own.

I imagined him as a grand feast spread out before me, one I selfishly wanted to consume without leaving a single crumb.

I straddled his legs and ran my fingertip over one of the piercings. “Do they hurt?”

His tongue swept over his lips and he shook his head.

Planting my palms against the mattress, I leaned forward, giving one more upward glance, to see him staring down at me. The sight of him watching me, the hunger in his eyes, had my stomach flipping over on itself. I lowered myself to his groin, breathing in his delectably masculine scent, and ran my tongue over one of the piercings. The same, salty flavor as the liquid that leaked from his tip watered my mouth, as I wrapped my lips around the end of a rung.

His thighs flexed beneath me, and he hissed, the back of his head pressed hard into the pillow, the veins in his neck pulsing to the surface.

A metallic bite lingered on my tongue, as I dragged it over the thick vein of skin that ran the center of each rung and along the velvety length of his shaft.

He moaned and writhed, but didn’t push me away. As I made my way to the tip of his cock, I circled my tongue over the small slit there and sucked the fluids away.

“Maevyth, what are you doing to me?” Threading his fingers through my hair, he slowly thrusted his hips forward and let out a grunt, as the tip breached my lips.

An ache struck my jaw when I widened my mouth to accommodate his girth and I lifted my gaze in search of his approval.

Staring down at me, he ran his thumb along my cheek, a look of pained ecstasy creasing his brows as I slid my lips further, over the thick ridge of his tip. “Godsteeth,” he said, his jaw clenched tight. “Seeing you like this …” He threw his head back, stretching the wires of tension in his neck. “Fuck.”

The sight of his rapture goaded me to take more of him, deeper, until the tip hit the back of my throat, and I gagged against him, quickly dislodging myself. Pressing the back of my hand to my mouth, I fought to swallow down the acids that shot up into my nose.

“I’m sorry,” I said in a choked voice. “It’s so big.”

He tugged at my arm. “Come here.”

Abandoning my exploration, I slithered up the length of his body and lay beside him, where he wound me in a tight embrace. “I wish I was a bit more experienced with these things.”

“Whether you’re experienced, or not, makes no difference. You’re the only one who makes me feel something.” He threaded his fingers in mine and kissed the back of my hand. “Your scent, your lips, your touch. It’s all I think about. Incessantly.” A kiss to my jaw. “The way you’ve crawled inside my head …” Fist tangled in my hair, he tugged my head back and dragged his teeth across my throat, the threat of a bite quickening my pulse. “I crave every part of you with an ungodly voracity.”

I smiled as he planted kisses along my neck. “It seems such an appetite would make you a dangerous predator.”

“It seems it would.” The devilish amusement in his voice roused a flare of goosebumps across my skin.

“Show me how to reciprocate,” I whispered. “I want to give you pleasure.”

He stilled and lifted his head, wearing a guarded expression. “To what end?’

‘What do you mean? Your pleasure, and nothing more.’

The furrow in his brow deepened as he stared back at me, not saying a word, as though my response had jarred him into silence.

I rested my hand against his cheek. “I want to show you the way you make me feel.”

Keeping his eyes on me, he turned just enough to kiss my palm. “A man should not long for madness with such enthusiasm as I feel right now.”

“You’re calling me mad now?” I asked with a smile.

“I’m calling you mine.” His lips found the curve of my neck, and he crawled over me, taking hold of what must’ve been a painfully stiff erection, given the hardness I’d felt. “Lift your shirt,” he commanded, and with a nervous nod, I slowly raised it up, until my breasts lay bared to him. Eyes shimmering with gratitude, he fell back on his heels, staring at me in a way that had my stomach fluttering. “By gods, you will be my undoing.” He leaned forward, laying a gentle kiss to my stomach. “Put your hands above your head. Grip the headboard.”

Without question, I curled my fingers around the wooden spindles of the headboard. A thrilling sense of vulnerability moved through me, as his big body loomed over mine, every inch of him a threat—from his broad muscled shoulders to his powerful legs that could crush me in one hard flex of his thighs. I surrendered myself as his prisoner, completely at his mercy.

He gave a lazy stroke of his cock, and his eyes shuttered closed, teeth clenched.

I lifted my head to watch him, never breaking my grip of the headboard.

His powerful and scarred body, inked in dark magic, virile and damp with sweat, roused a wanton craving to be ravaged by him. To hear the sounds of my clothes being torn by his strong hands, to feel the weight of being pinned beneath him.

Another stroke sent more fluids leaking from his tip, and in rapt fascination, I watched as it dripped onto my exposed belly. He upped the pace of his strokes, his fist planted beside my head, and he bent low, sucking one of my nipples into his mouth.

Like strings pulling at my core, every suck had me arched into him. The sound of pounding flesh beat a rhythm of need into my muscles, so raw and aching, I writhed in the agony of it. A sharp sting zipped across my breast, as he nipped me and groaned, panting through his nose. He stroked himself so fast, it shook the bed.

Switching breasts, he lavished the same attention to my other nipple—licking, sucking, stirring a maddening craving inside of me, but for what? I didn’t know. I ground my bottom into the mattress. Desperate. Needy. My fingers gripped the wooden spindles, so tight, they creaked, as if they’d break.

The tattooed flames across his arms and shoulders shifted and flickered, rousing to life. Black ribbons of fire lashed out at the air, like a serpent’s tongue. The flames danced across the space between us, and the moment it touched my thigh, I arched, thrusting my chest forward on an agonized moan, as pulses of radiant heat shot beneath my skin. The flames snaked and rippled through my veins to my core, sending tiny vibrations of heat to my womb.

Still grinding on the mattress, I bit my lip, mindlessly intoxicated and aching all over again.

“Zevander, please,” I whispered. “Da’haj mihirit dimitszia.” I frowned at the words that’d spilled from my mouth. Even more disturbing was that I knew their meaning. Give me your release.

He let out a long, tormented moan through clenched teeth, his head tipped back to show the veins in his neck protruding, just as before. Hot fluids sprang forth from the tip of his cock, spilling in white jets across my belly. Pulse after pulse shot out of him, coating my skin in his release. Wild fascination claimed his eyes as he stared down at me and ran his palm over my skin, spreading the fluids across my stomach. Marking me. “You are mine, moon witch. For all eternity and whatever lies beyond it. No soul has ever been more intricately woven into mine than yours.”

My heart lurched with his words, the cynical creature inside of me loosening its grip. I ran my fingertips over his cheek and the wretched black scar there. “And you are mine,” I whispered.

The room darkened as night fell. I lay beside Zevander, coiled tightly against his body, watching shadows move outside. The pale creatures with black eyes. In the hours that we’d lay exploring each other, their numbers had increased, the growls and snarling heightening with the rising of the moon. Though none had yet attempted to breach the ward, just knowing so many prowled outside of the small hovel stirred fears of being consumed alive by them.

Only the steady beat of Zevander’s heart at my ear kept me calm.

“We’ll return in the morning,” he said. “Hopefully there will be fewer of them then.”

Nodding, I clutched him tighter. While the thought of abandoning my sister’s search left a heavy ache in my chest, I couldn’t risk the possibility of something happening to either one of us.

My thoughts drifted back to the creatures I’d seen in the woods after I’d fought Elowen. What they would have done to me, had they caught me. Tearing into me with teeth and claws, or worse, attempting what Uncle Felix had tried back at the house. I flinched beside Zevander and nuzzled my face into his chest.

A gentle hand stroked my hair. “What troubles you?”

“You once asked me what I fear. I’ve since learned of another.” A shaky breath sputtered out of me, as if in that moment of calm, the trauma had finally found its home inside my chest. “Despair. I fear being so helpless that all hope is lost.”

“You’re not helpless. You’re strong, Maevyth. You fought, and you lived.”

A visual of lying beneath Uncle Felix, desperate and grasping as he tore away at my clothes, stabbed at my thoughts. “I was afraid. I reacted out of fear.”

“Fear inspires strength.”

“I didn’t feel strong. Not with Uncle Felix, or Agatha. Not with Elowen, or the creatures that chased me back to the cabin. I felt lucky, and luck eventually runs out. If those things come for us in the night—” A suffocating sludge of panic gripped my lungs, choking my words.

“I will not let anything hurt you.” Finger hooking my chin, he tipped my head back, his eyes glowing pools of molten lava. “I have killed in a variety of ways, Maevyth, but anything that dares attempt to harm you tonight will suffer the most violent of them all,” he said in a voice that was somehow fierce and chillingly calm at the same time. “Believe me when I tell you this.” His lips pressed to mine, and I clutched him tighter, letting him wind me in his web of safety. ‘They’d be fools to tempt such fate. Not a single creature would be spared when I burned it all to the ground.’

“I never should have come back to this place. Never should have left Aethyria. I just want to go back to Eidolon.”noveldrama

“I’m going to take you to Calyxar.”

“Will you stay with me?” I asked.

“Yes. The king will be searching for me. He’ll likely put me to death, or arrest me, for having abandoned my guard.”

I buried my face in his chest again, the remorse chewing at me. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have⁠—”

“Don’t be sorry. I’ve no desire to spend the rest of my life serving as a glorified nursemaid.”

The comment tugged a smile from my lips. “And so, you’d choose to be a glorified nursemaid to me? Watching over me all hours of the day?”

His lips curved to a smirk. “I’d quite enjoy watching over you all hours of the day.” He wrapped me tighter and kissed my forehead. “Particularly when your shirt is hiked up and your hands are bound. I’d never take my eyes off you.”

I thought back to that moment and the words that’d spilled out of me. “I don’t know what language that was. What I said to you.”

“You spoke Primyrian. The ancient language.”

I remembered Dolion had once said it was the language of the gods. It made no sense, though, particularly when I knew nothing of the Aethyrian gods. “How would I know it, let alone speak it?”

He exhaled a sigh and stroked his thumb over my cheek. “The mystery of you never ceases to intrigue me.”

The growls from outside had me lifting my head, and I peered through the dark window that showed nothing but the faint rays of moonlight. They were out there, though. Waiting. Pacing. “Do you think the ward will hold?” I asked, nuzzling closer to him.

He lifted his head toward the window, then lay back down, tucking his arm beneath it. “Hard to say. I suspect it’s the only way the old woman survived this whole time.”

“Those things … they’re terrifying. What is it that this Cadavros wants?”

Gentle strokes of his calloused hand across my arm sent a calm through me. “If it’s true that he embodies Pestilios, then he yearns for chaos and the power to control life and death.”

“Is it true that my blood could have prevented this? That the bloodstones are powerful enough to stop him?”

“It doesn’t matter, Maevyth,” he said, with a bitter amusement in his voice. “If preventing this plague means sacrificing your life, then I’ve no interest in saving everyone else. The whole world could perish of disease and famine, for all I care.”

“Some would call that selfish.” I traced my finger over the deep ridge in his chest.

“Then, I am selfish.”

“And Rykaia? You could watch her perish, as well?”

He snorted. “Rykaia would be first in line for my head, if I sacrificed you.”

The thought of that made me chuckle. “I look forward to seeing her again.”

“As do I.”

A horrific sound gurgled in my stomach, and I pressed my hand to my belly. “Speaking of being famished.”

“I suspect there’s stew.” He raised a brow. “If you dare.”

I’d have liked to imagine that pot only carried the remnants of one night, but given the lack of meat, I wondered how long she’d been scraping leftovers into it. “I think I saw some jars in the cupboard. I’ll see if I can scrounge a meal out of it.” I pushed up to climb off the bed, and he grabbed my arm, lifting his head off the pillow for a kiss. My stomach growled again, and I smiled against his lips. “I’ll be right back.”

“Good. I’m starving, as well.”

I left him lying there and padded toward the kitchen. Halfway to the cupboard, though, one of the floorboards seemed to shift beneath my feet. Frowning, I backed up a step, noting the quiet creak of the wooden planks, and when I stepped forward again, it shifted a second time, as if loose. I pushed up to the ball of my foot, noting a slight give. A carpet covered the board, which I peeled back. Beneath, a section of the floor seemed to have been carved out from the rest. Like a door.

From the table across from me, I swiped up the firelamp and turned it up, illuminating the irregular planks, one of which held a metal loop handle. A shadow of movement stirred in my periphery, and I glanced up to see Zevander at the threshold of the bedroom doorway. Arms over his head, he leaned into the frame, his brawny form a momentary distraction.

He nodded toward me. “What’d you find?”

“A door of some sort.”

Brow kicked up, he tipped his head. “Have we not learned to stay away from doors in the floor?”

Smiling, I looped my finger into the hole. “I’m curious. But, just in case, don’t go anywhere.”

He huffed and strode closer, looming over me as I pulled the door open on a groan of tired wood. Darkness below made it difficult to see, but as I swept the firelamp over the opening, I could just make out the presence of something there.

A body.

With a gasped breath, I jumped backward.

Zevander caught me before I tumbled onto the floor, and swiped up the firelamp from my grip, holding it over the opening. “Gods be damned …”

I scrambled forward and fell to my knees, peering down into the crawl space. My heart caught in my throat, as a needling shock crawled over me.

There, curled into herself, lay my sister.

Aleysia!