Something thuds so deep into my upper arm I feel it pierce through the other side, striking me with a blaze of pain. I cry out, curling the limb against my chest.
Rhordyn’s head snaps up, and he looks at me in a way that chills me to the bone as his nostrils flare once … twice … gaze flicking to the arrow protruding from my arm. His beautiful, powerful,brokenbody jerks, and his chest swells to the tune of cracking, crunching, popping bones.
“What’s …”
What’s happening?
He loosens our sheaths from where they’re strapped against his chest. Both swords thump to the ground before he reaches behind his back, snaps a few arrows, and tosses them aside like pesky twigs. Planting his forehead against mine, he closes his eyes.
The breath he pours over me ischarged.
“He won’t hurt you …” he pleads, his voice gravel. Unfathomably robust and …
Unfamiliar.
“Wh-what do you mean?” I lift my good hand to his cheek, flinching when his jaw pops out of place beneath my touch.
My breath snags, hand dropping to my hammering chest as he opens his eyes, but they’re not his eyes at all. They’re ghastly globes enriched with a shade of darkness that looks like it was hewn from somewhere not of this world. This close up, I see distant galaxies caught in the gloomy confines, certain I’m tumbling through the fathomless ether, trapped beneath the crushing might of my own insignificance.
This close up, I realize how small I am. How fragile.
A single speck of light.
Yet he’s looking at me like I’m the sun he orbits.
Rhordyn’s lips part with a distorted howl, the skin on his face shredding, making room for his expanding maw packed full of sharp, gnashing teeth, his canines growing longer than my forearm.
Time slams to a still, the rain like strips of string suspended around us as I watch. Horrified.
Hypnotized.
His face changes shape. Becomes big and boxy, sprouting a pelt of black fur that softens his thickening neck with a dense, regal mane and clothes his bulging shoulders and swelling back. There’s the sharp sound of his pants ripping, shreds of black material fluttering on the swirling wind.
Fear lacerates me with talon-tipped strikes, immobilizing my body.
My mind.
His body expands to mighty proportions until it’s no longer a man huddled over me like a shield, but abeast—dwarfing me in his catastrophic presence. A massive, blackVruk,just like the one I saw outside of Parith.
The one that ate the men I burned.
Rhordyn’s—
He’s—
Wild, unruly emotions mulch my flesh, masticating my bones as my mind trips over itself. Tries to regain footing.
Trips again.
The monster you know is safer than the monster you don’t …
My breath puffs free, and I try to flatten myself against the grass as the beast drops closer, sniffing at me through a wide, dog-like nose that’s black and wet. He digs his stumpy muzzle into the crook of my neck, and my entire body shudders, icy fear paralyzing my lungs.
My spine.
He draws several short whuffs, then lifts his head as a deep growl vibrates from his big, furry chest to mine. He shakes his body, the remaining arrows flying around him like water shook from a dog, before his head whips around, attention boring on the Gray Guards stumbling over each other.
Pointing.
