Page 23 of Memories Like Fangs
“What do you want to know?”
“Where are your parents from?”
I blinked blankly. “What?”
“Where is your mom from? Your dad? Where were they born, and where did they grow up? It doesn’t have to be both, but I’m not going to complain if you give me both.”
“Are you asking me if I’m actually Black or something?”
Lilah rolled her eyes. “Cute. But, no.”
“Then, I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Sure, you do! I know you dragons. I know you better than any hunter, even your little dragon-hunting fated mate. Your blood talks, you know, and I listen. Female dragons pass their memories down to their little fledglings when they die. So, youdoknow. Even if you don’t know, you do know actually, huh?”
“What? What are you?—?”
“You know, I love you playing dumb. It’s adorable. Does your little mate think it’s cute, too? I bet she loves fucking the intellect out of you and making you into a little bimbo, huh?”
I growled low and loud. “Fuck.You. I told you already that I don’t know. I can’t tell you what I don’t know.”
“Let’s be so fucking for real, Byrdie.” Lilah used the tip of Quinn’s blade to tilt my chin to look at her burgundy eyes andbrilliant smile. “You wouldn’t tell me if you did know, now would you?”
My lips formed a thin line as they sealed shut.She wasn’t wrong.
“Well, that’s okay. I have ways around it. I have ways aroundeverything.”
“Wh-what are you going to do to me?”
Lilah’s smile was as sickly sweet as her scent, maybe worse. She leaned away from me, taking a step back and pulling the dagger along with her. I thought she would stroll around again or do something else entirely.
“Before I snatched you up, your little Huntress Princess threw this at me. The fucking bitch actually hit me, too!” Lilah used the blade’s tip to point to the hole in her shirt. “I was pissed at first, I’m not gonna lie. Especially because she messed up my fucking shirt. But then, I realized what a poetic gift this really was. Not just because of the quality craftsmanship and utility, but also I had to use it for the bit.”
Then, she blurred to me, pulled her arm back, and stabbed me in my shoulder. It was nearly the same spot where Quinn had hit her.
I roared.
Naturally, I had never been stabbed by one of Quinn’s daggers, but I figured it would hurt. It was made to kill, particularly me and those like me. But nothing could have prepared me for this pain. On top of what I already felt, this was centralized in one place and pulsing with an agonizing heartbeat. Instead of an acidic poison in my veins, this one burned so sharply that tears stung my eyes.
“Oh, that hurts? Just wait until you feel how I make a blood weapon.”
Lilah sank Quinn’s blade even further in. It seemed to trigger a chain reaction as the pain reached a crescendo. It was likethe blood magic, but compounded. There were no words for this agony. It was too much all at once. It was misery. It was unbearable.
It was too easy to allow it to consume me completely.
Lilah’s high-pitched laughter was the last thing I heard before I went under.
Bear Trap
BYRD
Iwas running.
Again.
I ran deeper into the woods that I knew too well. The ground beneath me was too familiar, full of rocks and roots set deep in wet mud. Heavy and punishing, the rainfall pounded and stung my face, soaking me straight through my clothes and down to my bones. My breath sawed at my throat. The low branches snagged on my braids, threatening to unravel them just as I remembered.My feet were blistering and aching in my worn-down Converse, threatening to run out of them. All the scars, scratches, and bruises throbbed, not from healing but from being torn open again like time had curled in on itself. My muscles screamed. My legs moved before my mind caught up. Instinct and memory made me pump my legs further, higher, faster, and harder than before.
I knew exactlywhereI was.
