Page 148 of The Last One
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The bear-man towers over us, a fusion of brute and cunning. He blocks our path, flexing claws that could rip us apart. He smells as bad as he looks. Musk and mud. Blood and filthy fur. The insides of a dead man’s boots. His eyes glow like embers.
Behind me, Philia and Veril back away. But I hold in place, my feet solid on the hardened dirt. I meet his gaze with a steadiness I don’t feel—that is, until I remind myself who I am.
The beast grinds his teeth, a sound like crushing boulders. “How is it that the Lady has found her way into my woods?”
“Yourwoods?” I ask, livid for many reasons.
His use of the possessive “my.” His upright carriage—how dare he stand tall before me. His tone. Nasty. Disrespectful. Dismissive.
“Tell me your name,” I demand, even though what he is and who he is have already appeared in my mind the same way my own name had.
“You’ve forgotten it?” he sneers, running his large tongue over his sharp yellow canines.
“Tell. Me. Your.Name.” I take a solid step forward, my shoulder blades twitching, my fingers tingling. I want what I want, and that’s for him to—
“I don’t have to obey you,Lady,” he scoffs. “Without your pretty little pendant, you’ve become just like the old man and the redheaded child: powerless.”
“You are mistaken, Gilgoni,” I spit. “I don’t need—”
It’s too late when I see him strike. His whole paw comes a breath away from my face, but the tip of his nail on his longest finger slashes my cheek. Before I can react, though, something pulls me off my feet, leaving me disoriented, breathless, and shocked as I land on my ass, clutching my bleeding face.
I look up to see Jadon’s back, his legs spread apart, his knees bent. Fight mode.
Gilgoni roars at him, but that roar is cut short by Jadon’s own growl and then his shout. “I will strike you down. I will fucking slice you in two and feed Devour your corpse, and I will fucking set that sea on fire. Get.Back.”
The welt on my cheek burns like acid. I wince and close my eyes. I hear shuffling.
A small growl from the aburan. A huff. More shuffling.
Jadon stands over me, guarding, waiting.
With one final petulant growl, the creature dives back into the brush. The air clears with his departure.
Veril and Philia emerge from their hiding place behind a log.
Jadon lets out a deep breath, sheathes his sword, then crouches before me. “You okay?” He scrutinizes my cheek, turning my chin this way and that.
“It fucking hurts, so no, I’m not okay,” I say, laughing, even as the welts around my face sting from his touch.
Jadon leans closer. “Are you okay?” His eyes are soft but demand a real answer.
I nod. “Yes, thank you.”
“Let’s see what we have…” Veril’s voice makes me break eye contact with Jadon. He’s opening his bag. Vials and bottles clink and clank.
“You were talking to that creature, Kai,” Philia says, awe in her voice. “Did you understand its growls? Have you seen that thing before?”
Jadon holds up his hand. “Phily, let’s give her a moment, okay?”
“And you,” Philia says to Jadon. “You shouted at that thing and all of it just sounded so loud and confusing, and I don’t knowwhat’sgoing on.”
Jadon takes a deep breath. “Philia—”
“Let’s try…” Veril dribbles brown liquid onto a ball of cotton, then dabs it on my cheek.
Stings. The liquid pops and sizzles against my skin, and I suck in a breath through my clenched teeth. Whatever it is smells salty and metallic.
