Page 40 of Amber Gambler

Oxygen deprivation fizzed like bubbles in my ears, but the voice sounded closer.

With the ward down, the smoke cleared, and I beheld the churning void waiting to devour me. No. Not a void. Through the whirlpool I detected dreary gray light shining at the bottom of the culvert.

A fresh wave of dizziness swept through me as black dots winked like dying stars in my vision.

Within seconds, howling voices flooded my head with their eagerness to consume me.

The world swayed as cold water lapped at my feet and then my ankles, climbing up my body as the asrai dragged me to her lair, determined to finish what she had started, eager to strip the flesh from my bones.

More happened between the damp hitting my thighs and then rising up my chest, but I don’t recall specifics. I blinked under the moon and then I was submerged, swirling into the dark heart of the weirdly lit vortex.

The creature sank her claws deeper into my legs, tightening her grip, but I didn’t feel a thing.

Probably not a good sign.

Her hunger shifted into bewilderment as a glowing ember lit the darkness. She released one hand, confident I was past struggling, and cradled the teardrop of light, its serrated edges radiant. Delight rendered the lines of her harsh face beautiful.

I was losing time. Losing my mind. Because I swear I saw a figure step from the cold brightness below.

A vein of lightning struck above me, spiderwebbing across the surface, and the water boiled with it.

I didn’t feel that either.

Definitelynot a good sign.

Then I lay on the concrete bottom of the now bone-dry culvert with a smudge bent over me.

Had my heart not decided this was the ideal time to go for a coffee break, I might have smiled up at him.

Arattling cough jostled my eyes open in time to note the trash can tucked under my second-favorite chin seconds before brown fluid spewed past my lips in a choking wave of putrid ick that would give sewage a run for its money. Muscles I didn’t know I had in my stomach cramped from the abuse.

“We’ve got to stop meeting like this.”

Sucking in air, praying it was over, I risked a glance up, recognized Aretha, and shot her a thumbs-up.

A premature one as another heave threatened to send my lungs flying out of my mouth into the trash.

“That’s it.” She steadied the can in case of round three. “Get it all out.”

As the urge to purge subsided, I registered warm hands rubbing slow circles across my upper back. There was a brief pause in every rotation, an uncertainty in the press of long fingers into skin. Had it been Josie or Matty, there would have been backslapping to get me to vomit and screaming to callme ten kinds of idiot. Lots of screaming. Neighbors-calling-the-police levels of screaming.

That left me with Harrow as my unlikely nurse.

“Thanks,” I rasped, my voice a fraying thread unraveling through the room.

“You’re welcome.”

Wrenching myself sideways, I almost dumped the trash can’s contents in my lap before Aretha snatched it away.

Almost dying twice in as many days must have finally given me brain damage. “You see him too, right?”

Shoulders braced against my headboard, Kierce had been holding me wedged between his thighs while I bent over the can. I sat nearer to his knees now. He was paler than when he left, and his gaze was sharper. Electricity spiderwebbed between his fingers where they flexed on his lap like he had been my own private TENS machine.

Or defibrillator.

“Hard to miss him.” Aretha dragged her gaze over his features. “He’s very pretty.”

Out of the million questions I had for him, I couldn’t think of a single one.

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