Page 4 of Hunt the Dusk
“Are you sure they’re telling you everything?” Edwin asked.
“No. I know they’re not. But I trust that they’re telling me what I need to know. I don’t think either of them wants me to get hurt.”
“Do you think…Do you think Agatha was the woman this time around?” Merry asked.
I’d considered this myself. “I don’t think so. She didn’t seem particularly drawn to Ezekiel, and she had a fiancé who would have taken her out of Old Town soon enough. Either it was one of the others or…Or she’s still yet to arrive.”
“Let’s hope it’s the latter and you only need to step in until she gets here,” Padma said.
But if what Ordell and Hemlock had told me was anything to go by, then this woman, whoever she was, hadn’t done great inthe past. She was going to need some help when she got here, and it would be my job to give it to her.
“Where are the guys?” Edwin said. “Back at the castle?”
“I don’t know. I told them I needed some space, but I’m sure they’re not too far.”
“They’re here,” Haiden said. “In their rooms. But they won’t bother you for the next couple days. I told them I’d take their meals up to them.”
Part of me felt bad for asking them to keep their distance, but the other part held firm, knowing that this was what I needed. I couldn’t recalibrate my emotions when surrounded by the two men who seemed to throw them out of whack every time.
The insight didn’t stop my feet from faltering at the top of the intersection that led to their quarters, though. There was a twisted comfort in their presence. In the fact that they’d been there, seen Ezekiel’s brutality, and would be my companions on the journey to hopefully save him. But it was also true that being with them was like fighting the tide. I was afraid that if I wasn’t careful, I’d be swept out into a sea where the only escape would come in the sweet release of a drowning breath.
I needed time to find myself again.
Locked in my old quarters, I was ready to close the chapter on this day and was about to get ready for bed when atap, tap, tapat the window had me drawing my sword.
Only one creature ever visited via window, and he’d never done me any harm, but still, better to be safe.
I pulled back the drapes to find Godor clinging to the frame with his feet and the tips of his bat wings.
I shoved open the window a crack. “What do you want?” Godor pushed the window wider, his face a mask of apology, and my heart sank. “Godor, don’t.”
“I sorry,” he said.
Warm air hit me in the face. His special sleep breath.
Panic fisted my lungs. “Godor…please, don’t…”
The lights went out.
Chapter 3
The aroma of cedarwood teased me out of sleep, and the heat of panic dragged me all the way out.
I scrambled to sit up, kicking at the sheets covering me to press myself to the headboard of the bed I was on. My bed, in my room in the castle.
Ezekiel sat in the armchair by the dresser, ankle crossed over knee, silver goblet in hand. His dark hair was pulled back from his face, but shadows cut across his features in such a way that only his eyes were clearly visible, glowing golden and rimmed in crimson.
Hungry eyes.
The bastard was insatiable.
Insatiable and a murderer.
Agatha’s terrified face filled my mind, and dark rage bubbled up inside me. He’d killed her. He’d fucking killed her. I flew across the bed toward him, chest lurching with satisfaction at the look of shock on his face, but the next moment, I was crushed to the mattress by his ironclad frame, his hands bands of steel pinning my wrists to the bed.
Wrath surged, twisting and bucking my body as I seethed and snapped in the grip of a primal rage that I didn’t understandwhile a part of me remained detached, watching and marveling at this expulsion of emotion that didn’t serve our purpose.
“Oh, look at that,” Ezekiel crooned. “How glorious.” He ground his hips against me, and even in the throes of rage, I met his thrust with an aching roar, body reveling in the pressure, the friction, the threat of invasion.
