Page 37 of Stalk the Dark
He looked down at me with an indecipherable expression. “How disappointing. I thought you had a better grasp on your emotions than this.”
Anger surged up to choke me, and I swallowed it down. “I can grasp my emotions just fine without turning into a cold, unfeeling monster.”
He smirked, cold and unfeeling just as I’d described, and below us, the bat creatures attacked.
“No!” I pressed against the balcony, ready to jump in to save the man, but Ordell snagged me around the waist, pulling me to his chest and whispering in my ear.
“Don’t. It’ll happen regardless.”
I’d seen many horrific things in my life, but I’d never been forced to stand by and let them happen. I couldn’t watch. Would this be my life now? My body thrummed with impotent rage as Laroux’s screams increased in pitch and the scent of blood drifted up to kiss my tongue.
I glared at Ezekiel, at the impassive expression on his face. No glee. No joy. Nothing. As if he was watching paint dry not someone be torn to shreds.
My heart sank into my boots because how the fuck would I temper this…this frost-kissed wall of unfeeling stone? This was the true nature of his beast. This absence of feeling, of empathy, of…humanity.
Laroux let out a shrill shriek that clawed at myinsides, and the markings on my arm flared to life with a burn that was an unmistakable command.
A jab of the elbow and a twist of the body freed me to leap into the chamber. I hit the ground in a crouch and drew my blade in a fluid motion.
“Orina!” Ordell bellowed, but the blood pumped too hard in my ears to hear him as I swung my blade, slicing into the nearest bat creature to be rewarded with a scream of pain.
They turned away from Laroux and to me as one. “That’s right. Come on! Pick on someone who can fucking kick your asses!”
They all attacked at the same time, and even though a part of me knew this was shitty odds, that I was probably about to get my ass eaten and not in a nice way, I held my ground, ready to fight.
Red eyes, flared wings, snarls, then a rush of air and I was covered in darkness, my head in the grip of powerful hands that pressed me against taut abs as the bats continued to snarl and scream.
Ezekiel…Ezekiel had saved me.
Ordell and Hemlock calling my name were eclipsed by the steadythud, thudagainst my ear. So Ezekiel did have a heart after all. Maybe?—
I yelped as his hand found my throat and squeezed, and in the next moment, I was dangling in the air, held aloft while Ezekiel hissed at the bats. “This is mine!” he snarled, a sound more vicious and primal than any I’d heard before.
The bats dropped to the ground, the glow in their eyes dimming. I’d barely registered their submission before I was airborne, flying over the banister to land against another taut body.
“Fuck!” Ordell gathered me to him, his heart beating fast and erratically against me, and it hit me that Ezekiel had just thrown me.
“You fool,” Hemlock spat at me. “You impulsive fool.”
“What?” I pushed away from Ordell and hurried back to the balcony. The bats were gone, and Ezekiel stood alone in the chamber, looking down at Laroux, spread-eagle on the ground, his torso a bloody mass spilling with internal organs.
Dead.
I bit back a sob. “You killed him…”
Ezekiel looked up at me with a death-kissed smile. “No, Miss Lighthart. You did.”
Chapter 14
Dinner was over.
Ezekiel vanished.
Matthew showed us the door.
I rode back with Ordell, my back pressed to his chest, the gentle rock of the horse beneath me and the heavy weight of guilt pressing down on me.
Turned out Ezekiel never planned to kill Laroux, only maim him to exact a blood debt. My leaping into the fray had broken his hold on the bat creatures, sending them into a frenzy, and Laroux had paid the price.
