Page 101 of Kingdoms of Night

The wolves ran around her and barked. Their whimpers and the way they nudged her shoulder and Feron’s confirmed they were still concerned. She lifted her arms helplessly. “If he’d stay resting, he’d get better faster. But he keeps trying to get up. Whatever he’s hallucinating, it sounds bad. I don’t know how to help him. Gather as much wood as you can. I don’t want to leave him alone.”

He shoved the blanket off again and shouted. “Stop!”

Those claws hadn’t appeared again, thankfully. Deciding to chance it, she stepped in front of him and caught ahold of his hands. “You need to rest, Feron. If you don’t rest, you won’t get better.”

“No!” He twisted around, but his grasp was so weak he couldn’t pull free. “You don’t—don’t understand.”

“I understand everything I need to, and when you’re feeling better, you can tell me the rest.” She guided him back to the ground and tested his forehead. Now he was too hot. This fever might last through until morning or beyond. “You just rest—”Sweethearthad been the first word to come to mind there. She bit it back, shaking her head.

No. He wasn’t her sweetheart, and he never would be. But she couldn’t leave him without comfort…

She cupped her hand along his strong jaw. “You just rest, Feron. I promise, it’s safe. I’ll watch over you.”

Another cry followed. He stared sightlessly at the forest, then thrashed back. This wasn’t a good place to care for someone ill, but—she scanned the surrounding area. It wasn’t as if there was anything better.

It would be a very long night.

The wolves made several trips back and forth. She gathered up the few branches she could find and mostly tried to keep Feron from getting up and hurting himself. His outbursts and shouts broke her heart as she pieced together the heartbreaking reality of his abuse and those he felt he had failed to protect. From the sounds of it, though, what more could he have done? What could anyone really do in a situation like that? And no matter how many times she told him not to blame himself, he didn’t really seem to hear her. Perhaps he couldn’t.

She stripped all but the lower layers of her clothing up and hung them up to dry. The heavy material chafed against her, and though the night was cool, it felt good to stand in the light gray underdress.

The wolves returned. Together they had accumulated a decent mound of fallen logs and branches. Bits of bark clung to their jaws as they nudged the wood into a neater pile.

“It’s coming for us,” Feron shouted. “We’re intruders. Intruders must die. Idalno, go!” He jumped to his feet, swayed, and staggered. His right leg bowed almost to the ground.

“No intruders. No one’s here,” she soothed. “Your legs are going to buckle. Jumping is probably one of the worst things you can be doing right now.” Next to fighting or shifting. Actually, there were a lot of things he could be doing that would also be really dangerous and worse than jumping.

The wolves circled him slowly. Hawthorn nudged his leg as Buttercup barked. She tossed her head in the direction of the forest.

“Did you find something?” Idalno asked.

Another bark followed. Hawthorn joined in. He trotted toward the forest and then back, looking at her expectantly.

Night in a strange forest on the bank of a cursed pond wasn’t exactly a good time to be going off somewhere else. She steadied Feron and moved him back toward his makeshift bed. “We’re going to need to come up with a system for—”

The barks became growls.

She turned. Her heart thudded.

At the edge of bald cypress and strangler fig forest stood a massive creature, at least ten feet in height.

It looked like a wizened old man in the face and a muscular warrior in its body, as if carved from living green wood.

“Intruders,” he bellowed, his voice shaking the earth and the trees. “Intruders. Intruders must die!”

CHAPTERELEVEN

FERON

The haze of nightmares clung to him as closely as his wet clothes. The sound of the door’s rusty latch snicking shut. Jacques looming over him, berating him, blaming him, raining blows on him. Anouk curled under the table, little arms wrapped around her knees, tears escaping her squeezed-shut eyes as she cried.

“Worthless waste of skin and air,” Jacques snarled.

No matter how hard he fought, no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t stop it. It made his stepfather’s rage all the worse, rage that he would then take out on Anouk—unless someone stepped in. Unlesshedid. And maybe Jacques had been right about him being a curse, bad luck, a screw-up, not worth the food he ate and the water he drank. Maybe Jacques had been right about those things, but there had been at least one thing he’d known he was good for, that even he could do. Protect Anouk. He hadn’t been able to fight off a grown man or stop him, but he’d been able to endure.

Jacques struck him repeatedly. “It’s all your fault, you demon child. Your maman’s death, Danielle leaving, the crop failing, my bad luck at cards, the coin running out…”

The lashes sliced deep. But then his vile voice layered over Anouk’s cries, a cacophony that thickened and deepened, changed from a sharp biting tenor to a dull booming earthy tone.

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