Page 30 of A Dawn Of Blood

Nuala rolls her eyes. “It’s either that or the greenhouse, but I’d sooner throw myself to guard dogs than go out there at this hour.” She stands straight, bracing her fists on her hips, looking around and mumbling to herself, “But damn me to seven hells if I’m going to let him get out of toilet duty ever again.”

With that, she inhales sharply, fixes her eyes on the archway and starts marching out of the Main Hall.

The three of us exchange glances, bursting into laughter.

We spend the next couple of minutes in some mundane, relaxing chat about this and that.

It’s just as Alaric returns with the board and we start preparing to play the game that my wolf senses something.

I register everyone else shutting up, but I’m too focused on the archway now.

“There’s something very foul-smelling approaching from that direction,” my wolf tells me.

There’s cautious reaching for weapons and preparing to use powers all around me, but all eyes remain fixed on the archway, barely a breath being taken.

Then we see Finn walk through, stop in the archway and look around, and we breathe a collective sigh of relief.

“Gods, Finn,” Jaeger calls out, “you scared the shit out of all of us.”

Everyone laughs, but Finn doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t even move a muscle.

The laughter dies down and a shiver of unease skips down my spine.

For a moment, there’s only unsettling silence.

Then my wolf sees it.

The dance of something beneath Finn’s skin. Dark and shimmering.

I find myself on my feet, along with the rest of the Embers, while Finn just remains standing there.

“It’s the shadows,” I hear Nuala warn, loud enough for everyone to hear and a panicked murmur break out.

“Someone help him,” Jaeger cries out.

We all rush over, Nuala orders Raven to go get Dryden, Lorcan starts shaking the guy, Jaeger tries to talk to him…

But he’s still not even snapping out of it, let alone anything else.

Just as I try to convince them to let me handle it and they refuse me flatly, Dryden runs in, has us all step away and starts work on trying to banish the shadows.

But the shadows quickly become more visible, stretching his skin and making it move around while his eyes start to bulge out and his body spasm.

Then, all of a sudden, the shadows burst out of his chest and start slithering around him, making Dryden step away.

Finally, they let me try. I fail and move to try again, but the next thing I know, his entire body is wrapped in the shadows, this unsettling wave of energy knocking into my chest.

I feel someone grab me by the upper arm and yank me away just as the shadows start to emit this sickly green glow.

Everyone freezes, watching in dead silence.

The next moment, Finn is opening his mouth, the way he does reminding me of a ventriloquist’s puppet.

I hold my breath.

“Surrender the Aurora,” the words boom across the room, much more intense and authoritative than any I’ve ever heardFinn himself utter, “or this will be the fate of every member of the Resistance. You have twenty four hours, starting now.”

Once the proclamation is over, and while we’re still standing around in shocked silence, Finn takes a knife out of his uniform pocket and slices his throat open, so violently, his head hangs back before his dead body slumps to the ground.

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