“I could live with that,” I replied with a grin. “In fact, I encourage it.”
I held out my hand to her, thrilled when she laced our fingers together without a second thought. My wife. Mybondedwife. I could feel her, reaching through every part of me, warmth and love and reassurance so deep I wanted to close my eyes and luxuriate in it. But we had a family member missing, and only so much time to search for her.
“Sore?” I asked when we began to walk, watching her gait.
“In a good way,” she replied, a deadly smile on her face that pushed my self control to the limit.
“Let’s finish searching the area and get back to the room. I’m going to go mad if I don’t get inside you again. Properly this time.”
She gave me a sideways glance. “That wasn’t properly?”
“You came once. Damn right, that wasn’t properly. Our next round will have a four-orgasm minimum.”
Her laugh loosened something in my chest that had been there since I saw her vacant-eyed after Violence’s torture. I debated grabbing her up and running back to Lawrence Hall right now, but we veered back onto the path then, and the gates came into view ahead.
“Is that… blood?” Cat breathed, all happiness gone from her.
She quickened her pace, and I followed, refusing to let go of her hand. I thickened the shield around us, my head on a swivelfor death gods. It was blood, dripping down the gates, pooling on the ground beneath.
And when we came close enough to see the whorls of iron, the shield that had once been Ford School of Medicine but now was twisted into Cruelty’s delusional school, there was something that hadn’t been visible from a distance.
A lump of fur, hanging from the gate’s latch, speckled with blood.
“Oh god,” Cat breathed, the colour leaving her face. “Peach’s foot.”
They’d dismembered her.
CHAPTER 34
CAT
Tor and I agreed not to tell Miz about Peach’s dismembered foot; he wrapped it in a bandage of shadows for when we found her, in case it wasn’t too late for surgery. The sight of that tiny footenragedme. I returned to our room in Lawrence Hall vibrating with fury, sparks of magic spitting from my fingers.
“Calm,” Tor murmured, his hand on the small of my back.
The second we were back, I threw myself in the shower and turned the water up to scorching, trying to burn the rage out of myself. I needed to be composed when Miz got back, or he’d know immediately something was wrong. If he didn’t already sense it through the bond.
“Pain and Death are back,” Tor called through the glass door, joining me in the shower. I expected him to reach for me, to wrap my legs around his waist and make good on his promises, but there was a tightness to his features I didn’t like. He watchedme note it and kissed my temple, taking the cloth from me to clean the flecks of dirt from my back, my thighs.
“What did they find?” I asked, wrangling my rage into a box and slamming the lid.Calm,I warned myself, taking long, cleansing breaths.
“People are gathering near that hedge Madde is so wary of,” he replied, surprise blooming through the bond when I took the cloth from him and made slow, careful sweeps down his body. He liked it a lot. Even if his expression didn’t change, I felt it. “There’s a stand built of shadow. An audience, waiting for something.”
A stone dropped in my stomach. “Is this because Alastair reported back?” I breathed.
A sigh punched from his chest. “That, or Cruelty decided on a psycho whim she should play a game today. Who knows?”
We shut off the water and dried quickly, and it felt good to wear actual clothes instead of shadow. I might have been covered by that magic, but I still knew I was walking around naked. I still felt the breeze between my cheeks, and I wasn’t a fan of flashing my goods around.
We returned to the bedroom just as the door opened and Madde burst in, a whirlwind of freckles, red hair, and protective rage. The pink marabou that lined his sheer shirt tickled my jaw as he pulled me into a tight, squeezing hug.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, his rage and the panic I saw on Misery’s face more effectively dousing my rage than the shower.
Miz held up a dark green envelope, the wax seal already cracked. “Another invitation,” he said with a bitter twist of his mouth. “To the final game.
CHAPTER 35
CAT
