Page 103 of Darkness and Deceit
I tear down the corridor, heart hammering, boots pounding against stone. My chest is tight. My legs are screaming. I don’t give a shit.
I hit the next hallway and cut right—east wing. Old. Barely used. But it’s near the outer edge. If she was trying to get away, or trying to get a better look at what was coming, she’d go this way.
It’s whatI’ddo.
“Lilith!” I yell, voice cracking. “Fox! Where are you?”
At the far end of the dimly lit hall, my eyes catch sight of an old window. Its glass is warped and rippled with age, distorting everything beyond it like a wavering mirage. The sill is thick with dust, a testament to years of neglect.
I slam my hands against the cold, unyielding stone frame and lean forward to peer through the glass.
And that’s when I see them.
Rogues.
Thousands of them, stretching as far as the eye can see. They stand eerily still, like statues frozen in time, lined up in perfect, unnatural rows.
Their eyes—glowing, unblinking—dot the landscape like stars in a dead sky, watching. Waiting.
As if they’ve already marked their prey.
And that prey… is us.
They don’t lunge.
They don’t growl, snarl, or screech like they usually do.
They just wait.
And somehow, that’s worse.
If they’ve already taken her?—
Then I’ll make sure they regret crawling out of the dark.
Thirty-Four
LILITH
I wake up with a jolt,mouth open in a silent scream, but the sound is trapped inside me. My throat feels scraped raw. My chest heaves like I’ve been running for miles.
A constant, disorienting buzz fills my ears, a mix of static and distant sobs that blurs the line between reality and the chaos inside my mind.
Everything feels off-kilter, as if the world has been tilted on its axis. The cold beneath me seeps into my bones. It's not just freezing; it's a numbing chill, creeping into every crevice of my being.
This isn’t where I collapsed. The stone is wrong. The air too still, too heavy.
I scramble to sit upright, a ragged sob snagging in my throat. My hands slam onto the slick surface beneath me—stone, slippery and damp. My fingers tremble uncontrollably. I reach for my magic, but it remains elusive, like a distant echo shrouded by a heavy, wet blanket.
Then I sense it—or rather, I sense the absence of it. The tether, the invisible thread that always pulls taut behind my ribs, the one that vibrates with the pulse of my Shadows—it’s missing.
The ache comes so fast it guts me. I double over, a scream finally ripping free, curling through the space like something feral.
Memories surge over me like a relentless tide.
My deer. My fox. Torn from me. Ripped out and devoured while I stood there and watched.
And Tony?—
