Page 64 of When Death Whispers

Somethingravenous.

The air crackles around him, heavy with power. The ground beneath him darkens, shadows coiling, thick and alive. They slither up his legs, curling around his broad frame like possessive hands. He doesn’t seem to notice—or maybe he does and he doesn’t care.

Then the shadows tighten.

Rad’s body jerks like he’s been snared. His tail lashes, his muscles locking up as his glowing eyes snap upward—searching. Sensing. Then a chuckle.

My stomach drops.

We’re not alone.

“Well, well, well,Steorfan. Decided to join the party? You’re a little too late my little shadowy friend.”

A deep growl surges from the woods, from the ground, from everywhere and nowhere all at once, making my bones rattle, and my footing falter.

Steorfan? What does that mean?

The shadows surge, swallowing him whole. And just before Rad disappears into the inky void—just before the last of him is ripped from my sight?—

A second pair of eyes flare in the darkness.

Bright. Blazing.Orange.

My monster.

Steorfan.

And then?—

Rad is gone.

24

The moment he appears,Istrike.

My shadows coil like living things at my command, lashing out, grabbing, tearing, wrenching him through the gloom with a force that rattles the very bones of this wretched place.

Rad barely has time to snarl before I slam him into the ground, the impact splitting the earth beneath us. The air trembles with the force of it, trees groaning, fog swirling, the Evergloom itself reacting to my fury.

“You dare touchwhat is mine?” My voice is a death rattle, as lethal as a blade before it slips between ribs and steals the breath from a man’s lungs.

Rad lets out a sharp laugh, unfazed by the way my shadows coil tighter around his limbs. “Didn’t have todare,Deathling,” he grits out, flashing sharp, wolfish teeth. “Shewantedit.”

I lift him from the broken dirt, shadows still gripping his limbs, only to slam him down again. He chokes on the impact but grins up at me through bloodied teeth.

“You have taken what does not belong to you,” I grind out, shadows lashing around him, slithering under his skin like poison.

Rad simply smirks, the infuriating beast licking his split lip like he’s savoring the taste of my rage. “You sure about that?” he breathes. “Because from where I was buried inside her, she sure as hellfeltlike mine.”

A growl rumbles deep in my chest, low and guttural, vibrating through the air between us.Lies.But the scent of her still lingers in the Evergloom, clinging to his skin, soaked into his fur, and—worse—laced with something more potent than fear. Something I was never meant to know.

Desire.Herdesire.

It’swrong.It’s unnatural. It’s a twisting, aching thing inside me that I do not care for—do not want—but cannot rid myself of.

Iwatched.

Ifeltit.

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