Page 56 of The Serpent’s Shadow

I took a huge whiff of the intoxicating smell, which calmed me, before looking over my shoulder.

Grim stalked toward our group. Covered head to toe in blood. Everyone went on pins and needles, drawing their weapons, scattering in a semi-circle around him.

His eyes were still deep red. His stacked muscles bulged, making him an absolute unit, with veins distended and turgid. His huge swinging cock was growing thicker and swollen by the second, all the blood in his body goingeverywherebut his brain, it seemed.

This was Grim at his worst, his most devastating. My silent, stoic protector, lost in a daze of bloodlust he couldn’t control. For all the carnage he’d just wrought, all the death, I felt sadness and pity for the man.

This wasn’t who Grim Kollbjorn wanted to be. This was the Mr. Hyde to his Dr. Jekyll. The monster unleashed.

AndIhad unleashed it.

I stepped forward from the grasp of Magnus Feldraug.

“Silvermoon, no!” he called out.

“Don’t be foolish, girl,” Sven snarled.

I held my hands palms-out toward Grim, well aware he could snap me in half if he wanted. “Hey, big boy. It’s me. It’s me. Your little sneak.”

His tense, afflicted face mellowed, like someone coming out of a coma. He blinked, and the third time he did it, his red eyes had gotten that orange-amber hue back.

“Ravinica?” he croaked.

All around us were dead bodies, or people well on their way. Groaning, crying, bleeding. Not an intimate moment to be had, surely, and Grim realized it swiftly enough.

“What . . . have I done?” he asked.

“It wasn’t you,” I lied for him. It was only a half-lie:Partof it was him. Not all of it.

Slowly creeping up to him, my hands landed under his arms. I wrapped his broad body in a hug, hyperaware of the massive slab pressing against my middle.

I didn’t care. He obviously didn’t, either. The blood engorging his entire body settled soon enough, and then he seemed to be melting into my arms . . .

Until I heard a growl above me, rumbling deep from his chest. The massive body I held tightly went taut with alarm.

I looked up, saw his eyes were focused over my shoulder, and glanced back.

A gasp ripped from my throat. “Shit.”

Corym E’tar stood at the base of the hill, alone, with his feet in the bloody river. His prominent ears and platinum hair shone in the moon’s rays, highlighting what he was.

The elf extended his glistening silver sword in a fighter’s stance as all eyes turned to him.

Chapter 18

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