Page 10 of Of Wind and Terror

The message is clear—take one step closer and I’ll cut you.

Honestly, I’m not sure I’ll have the guts to do that. I’ve been conditioned my entire life to help individuals instead of harm them. My heart bleeds when I see someone in pain or hurting.

Can I really stab Aleksander, someone I considered a friend only a few ticks earlier?

Despite my turbulent thoughts, my grip is surprisingly steady on the knife.

Something molten and indecipherable flashes in Aleksander’s eyes. He licks his lower lip and releases a moan that borders on obscene. The carnal sound twists my stomach up into a dozen intricate knots.

“Can’t we save the foreplay for later, my sweet cherub?” Aleksander asks with a lurid grin. It tugs on a tiny scarbisectinghis upper lip, a line of pink on cherry red. “I don’t think this is the most appropriate situation to be hard in.”

Foreplay?

Hard?

I’m sure my cheeks are a brilliant shade of red by now, but I refuse to let him distract me.

I can’t communicate with him with words, but hopefully, my raised knife and “don’t come any closerto me” expression will do the job.

Abruptly—so abruptly that I wonder, briefly, if I’m imagining things—Aleksander’s expression clouds over, turning dark and menacing. The sight stills my breath and causes my heart to pound unsteadily. Fear crashes over me in a painful torrent as I study his suddenly venomous expression.

He reaches for a dagger in the waistband of his pants I hadn’t noticed before.

Gaia, is this it?

Is this how I’m going to die?

I think of the elf’s head Aleksander brandished when he first met up with me.

Is that going to be me soon?

Every muscle in my body locks together, seizes, as I brace myself for…who the hell knows what. Pain? Death?

Aleksander throws his dagger?—

And a creature directly behind me releases a guttural cry.

I spin so quickly that I stumble over the hem of my dress and come face-to-face with a familiar haggard male.

Patric.

The kind, old priest who led me into the tunnel and then was knocked unconscious by Aleksander.

But this…creature is not the Patric who attempted to save my life.

Fathomless black eyes home in on me unerringly. Goose bumps pepper on my skin at the sight. There’s no malice or anger in his eyes, but there also isn’t any warmth or compassion. There’s…nothing. No emotion whatsoever in a gaze that was once wise and intelligent. Black lines are visible through his papery, gnarled skin, crisscrossing across his face and arms like the intricate patchwork of a spiderweb.

“No.” I don’t say the word out loud, but my lips open and close, forming that one word in a silent denial.

What I’m seeing is impossible.

The black virus.

But Patric was fine only a few moments ago. He was walking and talking. He didn’t show any signs of being sick…

The priest ambles a few steps forward, Aleksander’s dagger protruding from his shoulder.

Aleksander moves so he’s in front of me, but before the elf can lift a finger in defense, Patric tosses him aside.

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