Page 193 of Kingdom of the Two Moons

The two beasts roar like real ones when she sends them toward the tent. Then she jumps on her wyvern and follows them, drawing the long Nefarian sword from her back.

60

Melody

Ronin and Kyrith storm outside, and Caryan follows.

The noise and his sudden absence startle me, briefly bringing back some life in me. I manage to get up when the tent is sliced open, and a woman with long, fiery-red hair enters, the point of her long, black sword trained on my neck.

The woman Lyrian wanted me to find. The woman from the bar in the human world.

She snarls at me, silver canines reflecting the fire as the sword tip presses into my skin. I feel the sting, the metal digging, biting my flesh, and taste the coppery smell of blood in the air. All the while, I hold the woman’s amber eyes, as clear and beautiful as Ronin’s.

I wait for her to increase the pressure a touch more, to plunge the sword through my throat.

But the woman hisses once, like a cat, and then lowers the sword. “A life debt,” is all she has time to snarl before Caryan’s fingers close around her neck, his other hand grabbing the sword around the blade, not caring that it cuts into his flesh as he frees it from her hand. He tosses it, and it slithers somewhere into the tent.

“Blair, it was a mistake to come here,” he says, and his teeth rip into her flesh.

61

Blair

Blair’s vision blurs. Pain. Searing pain shoots through her. Caryan’s teeth tear her flesh so savagely, so brutally, she cries out. Her whole body burns from an invisible fire.

Her silver nails dig into his hand around her throat. A ridiculous effort to loosen the grip of an angel. She’s lifted into the air. She kicks wildly, trying to fight. But her power and magic are draining out of her and into Caryan with every sip he takes.

Blair pulls her lips into a tormented smile. Somehow it feels fitting that she will perish by Caryan’s cruel hand, the same way her aunt died. Drunk to a husk.

As if that missing piece of their triangle finally snapped into place.

“Stop! Please!”

A faint female voice sounds behind her, carrying all the horror Blair doesn’t feel.

“Please, don’t kill her!” the voice starts again, closer.

Her scent wafts over to Blair then—the scent of the sweet human world Blair dreams about. A life where she could have…

Why the hell is this girl pleading for her?

Melody. The ridiculous, soft-hearted creature.Well, look who’s talking. Pot, kettle, black,that dark voice in Blair’s mind whispers.

Caryan’s eyes turn to the girl, but he doesn’t stop drinking. AndBlair knows he won’t. Not until she’s dry and brittle. He’s an angel, always has been. They have no heart, have no mercy, and it’s alright.

When Blair blinks again, the girl is no longer there.

Caryan lets go of Blair so quickly she meets the ground hard.

Groaning and cursing, she makes it to her feet, not willing to glance at the blood that’s soaked into her clothes. Instead, she stares at the open tent flap fluttering in the wind.

Where the hell is Caryan? And what the fuck happened? Where is the girl?

Blair moves, hissing as every tiny movement sends a wave of agonizing pain through the wound on her neck and all down her body. Leaving a bloody imprint of her hand on the wall of the tent, she stumbles outside.

She fights on through the knee-deep snow, flakes the size of walnuts whirling all around her, accompanied by hail that needles her ravaged skin. She falls to her knees, panting hard, darkness wavering at her periphery as she spots two figures, barely more than sentinels in the dark. The whirlwind of flakes so thick they look unreal.

Behind her, Blair smells the other two high lords, who must have returned after having realized the phantom creatures she sent were nothing but a distraction. They halt next to her, all three of them gazing at the girl.

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