Page 170 of Dawn of Chaos and Fury
She spun in a circle, frantically scanning the trees and bushes, all the dark and shadowed places. This was going too far. She should call for Lange and Corbin. She should?—
She spun back, both of them watching her with matching amusement.
“Priya,” she gasped, the name a breathy cry she nearly choked on. “Priya, you don’t understand. He— He will hurt you.”
“Hurt me?” Priya repeated, those innocent eyes going hard. “The Arius Lord would never hurt me. He’s the only one who comes to see me. He brings me pretty dresses and food. He gave me these woods and the friends I have in them.”
“He can’tgiveyou the woods,” she snapped, dread and fear sinking into her bones.
“But he did,” she insisted. “He lets me come here whenever I like, and now, because I helped him, I get to go with him too.”
“No,” she rasped, shaking her head. Then louder, she cried, “No!”
Spinning in a circle again, she searched for the Nymph. This death would not be quick like the last. She would drag this one out for making her live this nightmare. Its screams would wakethe others and be a warning of what would happen if they came near her again.
“Why don’t you go back to the Estate and finish packing your things, sweet Priya,” Valter was saying, and Eviana glanced over her shoulder. He was crouched before the child, holding her slim shoulders. “We are leaving at sunrise, remember?”
She nodded, bouncing on her toes in excitement.
Valter pushed back to his full height, patting her head as he added, “Don’t forget the extra sweets I brought for you.”
The child giggled before she turned and ran, racing in the direction of the Estate. Eviana could swear the trees and flowers reached for her as she went.
Then she was left alone with Valter in the Dreamlock Woods.
“This isn’t real,” she gritted out. “But when I see you again, I will end you.”
He sighed. “You cannot kill me, Eviana. The bond does not allow it, even if you have managed to block other facets of it.” He slinked forward like the snake he was, and when he stood in front of her once more, he gripped her jaw. “And while I want nothing more than to wring your neck and watch the light fade from your eyes for your betrayal, I find that will be far too merciful, and I am not a merciful lord.”
Gods, did she know the truth of that statement.
“Where are your companions?” he demanded in a low command.
But he was right. That bond was blocked, even in this nightmare.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she replied.
“It amazes me that such a short time apart can undo all the training I have instilled in you over the decades,” he spat, his fingers squeezing her jaw tighter. “I know there were two with you. Where are they?”
“I left them long ago,” she retorted, unsure why she would lie in a vision. “They were slowing me down and becoming a hindrance to my plans. Hopefully they died in the woods.”
Those words made his lips turn up in a small, sordid smile. “Glad to see the viciousness is still there, my flower,” he said, leaning in to run his nose along her cheek. “You’ll need it to survive the rest of your immortal years.”
Then his lips were on hers as shadows wrapped around her wrist, squeezing and bending. She cried out, Valter swallowing the sound as the dagger dropped to the ground.
The dagger she had been keeping to kill the Dread-Nymph.
The dagger that would have killed Valter.
But she couldn’t kill him, just like he said. The Source bond was there, even if blocked.
And this wasn’t a vision.
There was no Dread-Nymph.
This was a nightmare and not one she was going to wake up from.
Valter pulled back, her hands now wrenched behind her back and restrained by his shadows. He pulled something dark from his pocket. Metal that swallowed up the darkness around them before he lifted it and brought it to her throat. A thin chain that was freezing against her skin. He clasped it at her neck, and her power thrashed and howled in her soul before it was nothing.
