Page 142 of Mud

“Neat, isn’t it?”

For probably the twentieth time since this game began,I was so scared that I practically saw my soul leaving my body.

I turned to find Taland resting his back against the last shop in the square, half hidden in the darkness, eating an apple.

Just leaning there, watching, eating a fucking apple like he didn’t have a single care in the world.

To tell him that he scared me shitless was useless—he knew it already, and I’d just make his night, so when I strode to him, so angry I saw red, I said, “What the hell, Taland?!Stop following me!”

The bastard grinned. “Never.”

I tried my best to roll my eyes and mean it. “Fine. Then follow mein silence.” He’d been doing exactly that since I left Vuvu’s, anyway.

“But then how can I point out the obvious when it’s right in front of your face and you don’t see it?” he said, then threw the apple at me, half eaten. “Catch.” I instinctively did. “Andeat, sweetness.”

The apple was green and it smelled delicious—and also Taland’s mouth had been on it—but I refused to eat it.

“What are you talking about? Point outwhichobvious?” I said instead.

“This.The game that is about to become way deadlier.” Suddenly, he was by my side, his hands on my shoulders, and he spun me around toward where the crowd still lingered at the beginning of the street. “You know what that mage just did?”

“She got her key,” I said, hyperaware of his hands on me, of his proximity.

Damn it, he felt so good close to me like that.

“Yes, but how?” he whispered, leaning closer until hismouth was right next to my ear, and my knees got so weak. “She broke the sidewalk and sharpened those pieces of rock with her magic and spread them all over. She lured the elf out of the restaurant, then distracted him—scaredhim so he fell, sweetness. He fell and hit his head on those sharp rocks and died on the spot.Natural causes, technically speaking.”

“That’s…no, no, that can’t be.” It made no sense—to put rocks on the ground and then scare someone so they fell on them? That wasnotnatural…was it?

“It can,” Taland whispered. “She prepared the scene, scared him. He died, and she got her key.” His breath blew against my neck, making ice-cold chills rush down my back.Fuck.“What do you think is going to happen now?”

His words rang in my ear, and my eyes that had been half closed without my even realizing it, opened all the way again.

“They’re all going to try to do the same.” The words fell from my lips, almost as if they were foreign.

“Good girl,” Taland said, and his tongue pressed flat on the side of my neck where it connected with my shoulder. He licked a clean line up to my ear again.

I about died.

“Damn it, Taland,”was the best I could do, but at least he let go of me and stepped back, chuckling. Amused.

I threw him a look. This wasn’t fair, for fuck’s sake. It wasn’t fair that I was so weak and that he took advantage of it.

It was even less fair when he looked at me like he was really confused as he shrugged, “What?”

With a sigh, I shook my head. “Nothing. I just never knew how much my torment would entertain you,” I said, despite my better judgment.

But I just couldn’t seem to get over the fact that hehanded me to his brothers, then watched as they tortured me.

Even though I was aware that I had no right to be mad about that. To be hurting because of that.

“You know now,” Taland said, his smile vanished.

Suddenlyhelooked tormented, too, but I was not going to allow myself to fall for that. It was an act—his words were what mattered. His words and his actions.

“Pay attention to the game, sweetness. The other players will be killing a lot more of the residents now, hoping for the luck of that Whitefire.” He nodded his head toward the street. “I don’t suppose you could be persuaded to try to do the same?”

“No,”I said so fast I surprised myself.

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