Page 80 of Threadbound

Jamie sucked in a sharp breath.

“Speak,” Bran hissed, although he wasn’t talking to Jamie.

The creature in his grasp struggled, flailing its arms ineffectively and kicking its stumpy legs.

Bran’s fingers tightened around its throat, the slender fingers and knobbed joints pressing into brownish-hued soft flesh.

It let out a squawking noise, clearly choking.

“Who sent you?” Bran demanded, giving it a little bit of a shake.

It gurgled.

Jamie felt a jolt of sympathy for it. He hadn’t seen the creature—maybe it was just there, drawn to the same thing that had made him look down the narrow confines of the close. He opened his mouth to tell Bran to be more gentle or to show a little mercy.

“Bastard human deserved it,” the thing gurgled.

Jamie suddenly felt much less charitably inclined, deciding to shut his mouth without actually saying anything.

“Why?” Bran’s fingers tightened even more when it seemed that the creature wasn’t going to respond.

It gurgled again, half-choking, before spitting out the answer. “Orders.”

“The Sidhe King?” Bran asked roughly.

“Said to kill the human.”

“Why?”

“Stop the threadbond.”

Jamie’s blood went cold. Bran’s features were ice and steel, and his fingers clenched tighter.

It took Jamie longer than it should have to realize that Bran had no intention of letting the creature go—and he wasn’t trying to get information out of it anymore, either.

Jamie couldn’t watch Bran kill the creature, even if it had just killed a man.

“Bran.” Jamie’s voice sounded harsh and strange, echoing weirdly off bricks and cobbles. It was a plea. Asking him not to do what he was clearly doing.

The slight angling of Bran’s head let him look at Jamie out of the corner of one eye. There was disapproval in the angles of his face, but his fingers stopped tightening. They didn’t loosen, the creature still struggling and wheezing, but Bran paused.

“It was supposed to be you,” the fae said harshly.

Jamie swallowed, then forced himself to look down at the body growing rapidly cooler on the cobblestones. The man was tall—about Jamie’s height, maybe an inch shorter—and blond, fair skin. Side by side, he and Jamie didn’t look much alike, but with a vague description…

“It wasn’t,” Jamie answered.

“It was supposed to be,” came the sharp response.

“Human… witch…” the creature rasped, clawing at Bran’s wrist. Another squeeze took its ability to form words, although it was still clearly managing to get some air, as the kicking and flailing didn’t stop.

“You can’t kill it!” Jamie protested.

“Aye, I can,” Bran argued. “And I should.”

“But—”

“If I let him go,” Bran ground out, “he’ll just go back to the Sidhe King, tell him you’re still alive, and they’ll send moregeàrd soilleirafter both of us.”

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