Page 14 of All Hallows Fate

Tor’s words came back to me. Because you are the love of my fucking life, and I just held your lifeless body in my arms, and there’s no fucking way I’m losing you again.

He loved me. I thought maybe they all loved me. And I had a father, left behind somewhere. I had a family. I rubbed the knot in my chest.

“We’re bonded,” Misery confirmed, staring at the remnants of a grand staircase. “And you’re our wife. You forgetting us doesn’t change that.”

I physically jumped when his attention swung to me, his golden eyes searing right down my chest to brand a mark on my heart when they met mine.

“Don’t run, my universe,” he warned. “There’s no escaping us.”

Tor hit him upside the head, messing Miz’s hair. “Why would you say that? Now she’s going to—”

I was already spinning around and sprinting into one of the open doorways, bursting into a living room that made my chest squeeze like the village had. I could almost see the splendour of the couches, the thick rugs, the fireplace that was now dead, chipped, and bereft of fire, but once fierce. Almost.

I burst into a short hallway, followed that into a kitchen, and jumped around holes in the floor and an entire side wall devoured by fog, aiming for a back door. Skin tingled between my shoulder blades, but I made it out the door and sprinted around the side of the building, praying Fuzzball was still standing in the courtyard.

I found her gnawing at a bed of tulips, picking off their lime green petals and thoughtfully chewing. The sight made me stop, a spear of pain lancing my chest. The flowers… they meant something to me. I just couldn’t remember what.

“Fuzzball,” I panted, slowing as I approached. “Should you be eating those? I don’t think tulips are good for horses.”

She swung her head around, eyes gleaming deep crimson, smoke rippling from her forelock.

“Then again,” I said, “you’re no ordinary horse, so bon appetit.”

When she didn’t give me a warning stamp or huff at me, I grasped the saddle and hauled myself up, surprised anew by the natural motion of it.

“Let’s get out of here,” I urged, pressing my thighs into her sides—to absolutely no effect. “Fuzzball, come on. I need to leave!”

She tossed an irritated noise my way and went back to munching on the tulips.

“You came for me in that dark place, but you won’t take me away from here?” I grumbled, fog dancing around her legs, her side, brushing my knees. I shied away from it, but it left me unharmed. I unfolded the list again and scanned it, that male voice in my memory telling me the domain needed to be saved, that I was the only one who could fix it. That it was my home.

“Fine,” I muttered, about to swing myself off Fuzzball’s back when five other horses emerged around the side of the house, equally fearsome and impressive, with dark smoke billowing from their hooves, their manes. Their riders were cloaked, helmeted, but it didn’t take a genius to guess that these five riders were the five men from the house. My husbands. My bonded ones.

I sighed. Heavily.

Death met my gaze, something patient and loving in his stare. “Lead the way, little bride. We’ll follow wherever you want to go.”

11

Cat

The horses didn’t need to be rested or watered. They were immortal, beings of magic and pure power, hence the dark magic that wafted from them with every step they took.

They were also beings of unmatched stubbornness, and as our path led us through the hills above Death’s castle and down into a winding valley road where pale flowers poked through grasses still vibrant green despite the mist weaving through it, all six steeds stopped, helped themselves to the living banquet, and refused to budge.

I dismounted Fuzzball with a sigh. We’d only been riding for two hours and something, some inner pull, told me it would take far longer to reach our destination. To find the scales of Judgement. My instrument, I knew, because that man had told me. The one I couldn’t remember, whose name refused to bubble up in my mind despite every attempt to summon it.

“Your greed is a thing of nightmares,” I told Fuzzball, who didn’t even lift her head from where she’d buried it in the flower-laden grass, happily gorging herself.

“Should they even be eating flowers?” I asked Tor when he dismounted in a swoop of powerful muscle and masculine competency. I fought the urge to fan myself. But he was my husband, after all… “Are these even safe for horses?”

“I doubt anything could kill these guys,” Tor replied, digging around in his saddlebags and handing over a metal water bottle with cute cartoon animals all over it. Prairie dogs, a hidden knowledge whispered as I accepted it and drank heavily. It occurred to me only after I’d guzzled down mouthfuls of water that he could easily have drugged me. Then these men could have done anything to me while I was unconscious.

I could have woken up tied to a chair, in a dimly lit room. Alone, but watched. Unable to escape, to work even a centimetre of space into the rope bound around my wrists. My imagination was so sharp, I could feel the bite of the rope. I could feel the cool metal of the chair, a prison caging me in place while fists assaulted my ribs, making bones bow and break, making space for so much pain that I couldn’t stand it. And all the while that scent invaded all my senses. Sharp lemon and sickly mint.

“Cat. Beautiful?”

I jumped hard when someone grasped my shoulders, and it was instinct to throw my hands up, letting loose a slingshot of magic, the wild beast that lived within me churning, snarling for blood.