Page 64 of Fae Crown

He didn’t.

Unable to keep myself from whimpering, I cried, “Please. Stop. Kill me if you must, but not this.”

He drew back and away. I dared hope my relief would be long-lasting?—

Splash!Water smacked against my face in a spanking sheet. Its temperature was capture-your-attention cold.

Gasping, I gaped at the cretin who was setting down a now empty cup. “Wha—?” I stammered.

Before I could finish blinking the water from my poor swollen eyes, he was back in my face. His stare was wild, savage, more dangerous than the black stone blade he wielded.

“What’ve ye done with my gran’gobbler?”

I blinked and gawped some more. “Your … what?”

Tentatively, I waggled my jaw, and by sunshine it unlocked! With a deeply relieved sigh, I closed it.

“You heard me,” he snapped, his breath like hot saltwater stinging the many cuts along my neck. “Where is she?”

“Who? But before you answer that,what the dragonfire do you think you’re doing?You’d better back off of me before I … I make you,” I ended weakly, remembering at once the state of myself.

“Don’t play stupid with me.”

“I’m not playing,” I barked like a dysphonic seal. By a dragonling’s whiny nature, was my throat damaged too? Was any part of me working the way it should?

“Forgive me for being a little … out of it here.Fuck.” Even myfucksounded like a drunken raven’s caw. “You’re not helping anything by hurting me even more, you know.” I glared at him; I didn’t even think he noticed. Sighing in resignation, I said, “If you’reGranddoody, then Pru’s fine.”

I hoped she was fine anyway. But now didn’t seem the time to argue the finer details of her whereabouts.

“I don’t know a ‘Pru,’” the crazy goblin said while he raised his blade as if to strike me straight through the chest with the full force of his weight and misplaced anger. Combined, they were that of a full-grown dragon.

“Prim … rose,” I wheezed, as he leaned his empty hand onto my shoulder and pressed down. All at once, blissful oblivion was winking at me, beckoning me toward it.

“Primrose?” he repeated, but I was too far gone to answer.

My eyes had closed of their own volition. The pains were already beginning to fade as the darkness crowded in again like a soothing compress. I didn’t have to do a thing to make it happen. For once, something was easy. Consciousness was leaving me all on its own?—

Two hands dug into my shoulders and shook me. Oh dear dragons, no. The pain erupted across every inch of my body, and I couldn’t bear it. I held my breath and prayed for it to end.

“Lemme go,” I mumbled, still chasing the darkness that clutched me.

“Not till ye tell me ‘bout my gran’gobbler.”

Then the bastardshook me again.

I forced my eyes open to their widest, causing my puffy eyelids to throb. “That’s it,” I seethed, though my vehemence cost me with jolts of hurt pretty much everywhere—shocker. “You shake me or push on me or put a knife to my throat one more time, and I swear to dragons I’ll kill you the very instant I’m well enough to enjoy it. And if I die, I won’t go to the Etherlands until I’ve spent at least a century haunting you so hard you won’t ever sleep again. Do you get me?”

While he blinked in surprise, so did I. My speech was coming more easily. I hadn’t even had to pull aMauricio.

The goblin seemed to have recovered from whatever had shocked him. Once again, he loomed over me.

But he didn’t touch me.

“I mean it,” I warned, my voice a rough croak. “I’ll butcher you if you keep pushing me. I’m well past my edge, asshole.”

The resulting imagery of slicing the goblin to bits was enough to make me grimace, becauseblazes, no, I didn’t want to do that. But on the outside, I merely sneered at him as best I could around what felt like split lips. A split cheek too.

The goblin wavered as he studied me. “What’d ye do to my Primrose?”

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