Page 112 of Dark & Dreadful Brutes

It was a good thing my mind wasn’t working correctly, or I would’ve been a shaking, sweating mess.

“You have hunted and slaughtered us, but we will not cross the veil in vain!” the man holding me shouted to the crowd that had gathered at the base of the castle. My body stilled as he lifted the sharp edge of an ice blade to my throat and pressed hard. It nicked my skin, and a drop of warm blood rolled slowly down my neck. “The king’s mate dies with me, leaving you with nothing but a broken crown, while the Demon of the Weeping Skies burns you all to ash.”

Ravv and Coarse roared into my mind, deafening me to the sounds of the man behind me and the fae below.

The last few times I had been captured, I froze.

I couldn’t move, or think.

This time, I forced myself to fight those urges. I had to speak—if I didn’t, I would die. “Our bond isn’t sealed,” I managed to say. “We’re not mates.”

“You have a bond, and that’s dangerous enough,” the man spat into my ear.

A soft cry escaped me as he dug his knife deeper into my skin. More blood rolled down my throat until it disappeared into the dark fabric of the large, soft shirt I had taken from Ravv.

Ravv’s voice boomed into my mind, growing clear for just a moment. “I’m almost there, Lae.”

He needed me to delay the cultist.

It was my only chance at survival, so I forced my blurred mind to focus just a little longer.

“I didn’t ask to be mated,” I whispered. “I didn’t know what he was doing when he said the vow. We don’t—”

“Shut up,” the man snarled at me. “You lost the right to live the moment that handprint appeared on your arm. You are a threat to Evare, and—” His words halted, and his hand dropped away from my throat. The knife was still too close for comfort, so I didn’t dare move.

After a moment’s pause, he stumbled.

A scream pierced the air as we plummeted off the ledge—my scream.

I fell for a moment—the longest moment of my life—until a strong hand caught me by the ankle. The yank of the grip was painful enough to make me scream again, until my body slammed against the icy wall of the castle, and the shock of it silenced me.

The fae who had cut me continued to fall. I heard yells and cries erupt below me, but none of them processed.

Everything spun faster as more pain flooded my senses.

Ravv spoke into my mind, his words sure and calming, but I barely heard them.

The grip on my ankle began to pull me back up onto the roof.

The crowd and world hung below me, and the terror held me captive.

I finally cleared the ledge, and a pair of warm arms wrapped around me. I inhaled Ravv’s scent deeply as his chest rose and fell, and I could nearly feel his fury spiraling out of control.

The smell of him calmed me, though the world was still spinning. I wasn’t sure what that fae had done to me, but it wasn’t right—I wasn’t right.

My stomach churned, then, and I moaned.

Ravv parted my lips, leaning in and sniffing my breath. Curses burst from him as he hauled me up off the roof and back into the castle. He snarled commands at someone—I couldn’t focus well enough to know who—as he stormed back through the hallways.

My knees met the cool ice floor of our bathroom just in time for me to lean over the toilet and vomit the contents of my stomach.

The sickness was more violent than anything I’d ever experienced before. It hit me again, and again, and again. Ravv’s hands were on my arms, in my hair, on my shoulders. At some point, he had a cold, damp cloth on my forehead that felt so good I could’ve cried.

When my body was empty and my mind delirious, he carried me to the bed. His voice was soft and kind, his grip gentle but firm, and I managed to doze for a few minutes before the vomiting started again.

At least I wasn’t on the roof anymore, I thought briefly, before losing consciousness to the sickness.

Chapter 25

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