Page 56 of A Dagger of Twisted Starlight

The Shade didn’t relent, even though its flesh looked like ripped pieces of black cloth. It lurched upward, trying to clamp that suction-like mouth around my jaws. I pulled back.

Warrick gave a loud shout from behind me. “There’s another one!”

A crash and a yell. I couldn’t look back, not without giving the advantage to the Shade. I had to finish this. I had to?—

A spider leg stabbed into my shoulder, breaking through flesh. The pain seared through me. A howl ripped through my throat. The Shade lifted me up and spun me, pinning meagainst the wall. Its hungry black eyes looked like two depthless black holes.

Behind it was the other Shade. It had Dawn and Warrick occupied, lashing out as the two dragons tried to strike it down. Xavier was across the room. He lifted his hand to launch an attack at the Shade that had me pinned but was interrupted when Warrick was thrown against him, sending them both falling to the floor.

I tried to fight back, to struggle, but the Shade’s mouth moved like lightning, clenching around my jaw. I yelped in pain, the sound swallowed by the creature.

The sucking pressure came next. It was unbearable. Like my organs were being pulled out of place, my bones began to crack, my blood flooding in the opposite direction.

My vision started to go. The pain crested like a tidal wave.

Death would come next.

Chapter 24

Shadows And Lies

Xavier

The third Shadesnuck up on me. I was so focused on getting to Blake’s side that I didn’t hear the scuttling from behind me. The ironlike spider legs wrapped around my chest and yanked me backward.

Dawn was fighting with bolts of electricity that kept bouncing off her target. Warrick had miscalculated a dodge and got cracked against the head by the Shade attacking them. He dropped to the ground, unconscious.

And then there was Blake. He’d been pinned against the far wall. He struggled against the shade, but it was useless. He’d lost his advantage. The Shade pressed up against Blake’s wolf form and latched its disgusting mouth around Blake’s maw.

No. No, no, no. Fuck no.

I managed to get a hand loose. I summoned a lethal dagger of sand and stabbed it into the Shade behind me. It let out a glass-shattering screech. The hairy spider legs let me loose as it scrambled backward. I had hit some kind of artery. Blood gushed out of its side like an oil spill. Still, it wasn’t dead.

I’d fix that. I mustered all the strength I had in me and swung my fist up, the dagger piercing through the Shade’s neck and up into its head.

It collapsed to the floor.

I spun around. Blake had maybe seconds left before he was turned to a gelatinous substance. I didn’t even have time to get across the room and fight the Shade.

Breathe. Focus. Follow the oxygen. Just like Blake had told me.

Breathe.

In and out.

I raised my arms. I had to save Blake. Breathe.

Had to save him.

A shining bow made of dense sand appeared in my grip. An arrow was notched. I pulled it back. The bowstring drew tight. I took aim. This shot couldn’t miss. It had to hit without penetrating all the way through, or it would hurt Blake as well.

He didn’t have time. His limbs went limp. Dawn shouted. She had her Shade subdued. She saw what was happening.

I let the arrow fly. It sliced through the air. I held my breath. My heart stopped beating for the brief second it took the arrow to find its mark.

It went directly through the back of the Shade’s skull. With the kill shot made, the arrow dispersed into individual grains of sand, raining down at the same time as the Shade fell to the floor. Blake collapsed on top of the creature, still in his wolf form, hardly moving.

I ran to his side. A cloud of white smoke enveloped him, dispersing to reveal a battered and bruised human Blake on the ground. He rolled off the Shade. His shirt was torn andblood spilled from a wound in his shoulder. I ripped off my shirt and pressed it down onto the puncture wound.

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