Page 37 of White Raven

“We don’t have much of a choice. The next town is over a day’s ride away and we need to get off the road. The Jackals are still out there. Hunting us.”

Terror wormed through me at their name, and I swallowed back bile from the memories. The pain in my arm had been a continuous throb, and the drugs the Jackal had used on us were wearing off along with the adrenaline. It was becoming a painful ache, twisting my stomach over itself.

My hand touched the bandage at my arm, the evidence of what almost happened to me. Breathing in and out, I stepped cautiously inside the old tower. The walls barricaded the wind, but did little else. Nature had intruded, rooting itself along the walls, tearing at the stone floor, and destroying the stairs leading up, leaving ruins of whatever existed here before.

The wind howled through the open windows from above, sounding like screams and moans, an echo of the past. I could feel misery within the structure, peppering goosebumps over my limbs.

Wrapping myself in the rough cloak, lost in thought, my heart leaped when a massive, hooded silhouette with a scythe stepped in from the back doorway, seeing a Jackal.

“Huginn-Muninn.” My hand went to my chest. “You scared me.”

“I. Should.” The Northerner stepped in, the shadows receding from half his chiseled face to highlight the scar on his lip. He tossed boughs of pine he had gathered from the ground onto the cracked stone floor, flicking his head. “You can sleep here,” he practically barked, like I was his hound, while he carefully set down the saddle and reins from the horse.

“You let it go?”

“Draugrhest are not pets. They are to be respected. To be given a choice . . .” He sauntered up until his boots hit mine, his emotionless gaze locking on me. “Unlike you.” I tried to pretend his physical nearness didn’t affect me, but I shifted back, making his lip curl. He easily regained the space I put between us. “A good lesson, kanin . . . no matter if your mouth and hands are untethered right now, you are still mine to do what I want with. Don’t ever put me in any other category but your enemy.”

“Don’t worry.” I prodded my chin higher, though my voice came out a little wispier than I wanted. “I do.”

“Right.” He bobbed his head. “Because I’m a lowly thrall in your eyes.”

“No, because you’re a soulless Night Raven, who kills and tortures my people.”

“Am I?” He reached over, rubbing a strand of my hair between his fingers. “I thought we went over this?” He leaned in, his lips merely inches from mine. I could feel the heat of his mouth, the rumble of each word against my own. His fingers tugged at my locks, shivering my skin, causing heat to flush over me. It felt like a power play, one to make me feel uncomfortable. Anxious.

It was working.

“How is your father any different to the Night Ravens?”

“Because—”

“Because he told you?” His eyebrow curved. “What do you think your father, and General Backe, do to thralls in the prisons below?”

“But . . . you murdered my friend,” I croaked.

“Technically I didn’t. But I would have. As your people murdered my friend.” He snarled, his mouth so close, I could feel the scar brush against mine.

“Because you were kidnapping me.”

“I can’t decide.” His dark eyes tracking mine, like he was searching for something deeper in them.

“What?”

“If you are truly ignorant, or willfully so.” He sneered, stepping back. The cool air seeped back in, slapping my skin. I relished the shock, the air clearing my head.

“Fuck you.”

An eyebrow curved up. “Thought we’d been over that several times now.”

“Then fuck yourself.” Hot anger shot from my mouth. “I have been tutored by the best teachers in the whole Day Realm.”

“I don’t doubt that. But what you study in books makes you know the things in them. History is written by the winners to make themselves the heroes, not about the truth.”

“What does that mean?”

“Did you know Beggar’s Hole wasn’t the original name of this place?” He strolled to a window facing the road, observing the landscape for any threat.

“No?” I shrugged.