Page 7 of Wilds of Wonder
“I never thought I could hate you more than I do in this moment,” I said. “But maybe this is actually a gift.”
His eyes narrowed over his long nose. “What are you talking about?”
“Prison would be preferable to being married to you.”
“How dare you.” His face turned a bright shade of red.
“It took me until now to realize it. I was so afraid of losing this life, but now that you’ve found me out. I’m...” I paused. “Relieved.”
I was scared too. Terrified, actually. But I’d be damned if I admitted that to him. Everything else I’d said was true, though. I could survive prison. I could pay my dues and come out on the other side. But this marriage? I wasn’t sure I could survive another day in it. Not with him.
My hands curled into fists. “Instead of trying to trap me, you could’ve shown interest in something that excited me. You know that I have a passion for history. You could’ve encouraged it instead of acting like it was some threat.”
He took a step forward, the vein in his temple throbbing. “It was a threat. Instead of focusing on being my wife, on supporting me and my career, you were traipsing off playing pretend. You are never going to be a historian, Emory. You will never be anything more than what you are, what you’ve been raised to be.”
His words struck me in the chest. Right in the most tender part of my heart.
“Just so you know,” I said, “I’ve hated every moment of being married to you. Every time you touched me, it made my insides shrivel. Every time you kissed me, it made my stomach twist.”
His face was now a dark shade of purple.
“And let’s not even get started on the pathetic thing you call sex.” He was shaking now, and I wondered if he might actually strike me. “I would just go somewhere else in my mind every time you climbed atop me. Think about my favorite things to make it bearable. Thank the spirits for the cassroot.”
He stilled. “What are you talking about?”
“Why do you think I haven’t become pregnant after seven long years of marriage?” I laughed. “Because I couldn’t stand the thought of having your child.”
“You bitch.” He lunged at me, his meaty hands wrapping around my throat as his face twisted in rage. I clawed at him, fingers digging into his arms, hands trying to reach for his face, for anything that could loosen his grip. When that didn’t work, I kicked out my legs, and he lifted me into the air. My vision blurred, and my throat burned as his hands clenched tighter. Meanwhile wind stirred and wrapped around me, pushing my hands down and binding them to my sides. He was using his sky magic. Stars dotted my vision, terror freezing me.
I was going to die here.
His eyes bulged from his head, veins popping under his bald scalp. My vision started going black, and my lungs clenched in pain just as my husband let out a garbled choking sound.
His hands froze, and I managed to kick at him and get free from his grasp. I fell to the ground, coughing and sputtering. Air rushed into my lungs as I took heaping gasps. My throat burned, skin bruised and sorefrom where his hands had gripped me tight. What in the spirits below had just happened?
I looked up at my husband to see him clutching his chest, still making that garbled, choking sound.
“Gregory?” I said slowly.
He fell to his knees, face stricken.
“Gregory!” I rushed to him, the fact that he’d just tried to kill me forgotten with this turn of events. I patted at him, looking for any kind of wound or injury, but I didn’t see anything. “What hurts?”
Spittle flew from his mouth, eyes now veined with red. A croak escaped his mouth as he fell to the floor with a thud. I watched in horror, the events unfolding in slow motion, his body slamming to the ground, wings shuddering, and one last garbled breath escaping him. Then everything went still and silent.
“Gregory?” I asked, reaching out trembling fingers that I pressed into his neck.
No pulse. Blood and frost. My husband was dead.
Chapter Four
EMORY
Iburst out of my house in a panic, carrying my little chest of artifacts, wearing my boots, my nightgown, and my heavy fur cloak I’d had the wherewithal to grab before I fled.
Now I trudged through the snow-covered ground, passing log cabin after log cabin, all lined in neat rows that hedged the cobblestone road where I walked.
I had no idea where to go, what to do. I just knew I couldn’t stay in that house with my dead husband. I stopped, looking back and wondering if I’d lost my mind.
