Page 73 of Tethered In Blood

“You shouldn’t have come.”

“You don’t belong here.”

“Leave. Leave. Leave.”

My breath hitched. It was the same voice as the man at the village market. I snapped my head toward Oberon. “Do you hear that?” His stride didn’t falter, but his jaw tightened. He must have heard it, too.

“Turn back.”

“They’re waiting.”

“You were never meant to leave.”

Something shifted in my periphery, but there was nothing there: only trees, shadows, and a suffocating force pressing too closely.

Oberon grasped my arm, bringing me to a halt. His chest heaved as his silver eyes searched the woods in front of us and then behind. Tension coiled through him.

We weren’t alone.

A low, rattling breath stirred the branches just behind me. When I turned my head, a figure stood too close—half in shadow, half in the dim slant of evening light. It was worse than the thing from the field.

Taller. Gaunt. Its limbs were too long, its neck crooked and twitching. Its mouth hung parted, revealing jagged, brittle, splintered shards. There weren’t any eye sockets, only empty, cavernous voids—a depth that stretched on forever.

Oberon shoved me. “Damn ha adaneth, run!”

The air burned my lungs. My boots found purchase as I tore through the trees, branches snapping beneath my weight. Oberon stayed beside me, the creature keeping pace behind us. A wet, rattling sound. Not a growl or a breath, but something trying to remember how to be human.

The ground trembled, and the trees shuddered.

I stumbled, catching myself just before my knee hit the dirt. Oberon grabbed my arm and yanked me forward before I lost momentum. The laughter had stopped, replaced with a deep, guttural clicking and a pulse in the air. I felt it in my bones and teeth.

Oberon cursed under his breath. “Veilbound.”

The word made little sense, but there was no time to ask. There was cracking through the trees behind us, too fast, too heavy.

The trees thinned ahead, a clearing. “We need to—” The moment we hit the tree line, something slammed into us. The force sent me sprawling across the ground. The breath ripped from my chest as I hit the dirt and rolled until my back slammed against something solid. My vision blurred, and my ears rang.

Oberon sprang to his feet mid-roll and pivoted with his blade drawn.

A shadow loomed just beyond the clearing. It was hulking with twisted limbs and exposed sinew. Its mouth was a maw stretched too wide, splitting its chest.

Inside were more faces that were contorted in silent screams, shifting beneath the torn flesh. My stomach lurched again. Oberon stepped forward, separating me from the creature, and slipped into an unprecedented stance.

Fae.

The thing snapped its head toward me. A blur of glowing silver and steel flashed across my vision as Oberon’s blade severed flesh.

The air shattered and rippled, forcing me to cover my ears.

A deafening screech split through the clearing, high and raw, like rusted metal scraping against bone. The thing lurched. Its grotesque jaw split wider, and the faces beneath its skin writhed as if they were alive.

Oberon’s blade tore through its side, but it didn’t fall. It didn’t even bleed. I scrambled back when the thing jerked toward me. Its limbs spasmed as too many joints bent the wrong way. Oberon slammed his body into it with a fierce growl, pushing the creature back. His silvered eyes gleamed cruel and feral. The grip on his sword tightened before he drove it straight into its gaping maw.

For a moment, everything froze.

The creature’s body twitched. The faces beneath its skin screamed in unison. Black bile erupted from its mouth, splattering across the ground.

I flinched as the smell of rot and charred meat filled the air. My stomach twisted, but I had to stay upright. I had to move. Oberon wrenched his blade free as the thing collapsed. A sickening, wet crack filled the air while its body hit the ground, twitching, its grotesque mouth still stretched open in its final, soundless shriek.

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