Page 95 of Dream Reaper

Finnr and Ava dropped him down on a crooked stump. He braced his palms against his thighs, gasping for breath.

Ava crouched in front of him and peered up into his face, her eyes huge, frightened. “Flames, Jerrid, you look like…like⁠—”

“Death warmed over,” Finnr supplied helpfully, but when Jerrid shot him an annoyed look, the man backed away with a grim smile.

“If I look as good as I feel,” Jerrid managed, “I must be quite the sight.”

Ava didn’t smile; her mouth pressed into a thin, white line. Shades, he must look worse than he realized. She peered over her shoulder and then shifted so that she crouched closer to him. She laid a hand on one of his.

“There’s something I need to tell you,” she whispered.

Why was she being so furtive, as if she didn’t want anyone else to overhear what she was about to say?

“I think I know what’s wrong with you.” She hesitated, tongue flicking over her lower lip. “Did you hear music recently? While we were, uh, fighting?”

Jerrid’s pulse quickened. “How did you know that? When we were in the gully…I did hear music. I thought I was just, I don’t know, dying or something.”

“You weren’t dying,” she said, but something in her tone sounded cagey, too cautious. “I think I was sort of, um, killing you.”

Killing him? What in the world was she talking about?

“Do you mean the connection between you, me, and Dragon?”

No, Dragon hissed, she isn’t talking about that.

“What do you two know that I don’t?” Jerrid demanded, his pulse thrumming in his aching temples. “What do you mean, you’re killing me?”

Ava squeezed the bridge of her nose with her free hand, her other one still resting on top of his as if she were trying to restrain him or keep him calm. “It’s difficult to explain. It’s an old family curse, and I didn’t think I had it. It’s never done anything before, so I thought maybe I’d been lucky.”

He inhaled a slow breath, his chest tight. “And what does this family curse of yours do?”

Ava’s cheeks darkened, and she stared at him through wide, unblinking eyes. “It takes energy from others so that I can funnel it to someone else. I’m not supposed to be able to use it myself…but I think I’ve been giving it to Dragon, who kind of…feeds it back to me.”

He blinked, replaying the battle with the shadow. When Ava had attacked the shadow with her magic using her power, that was the precise moment when he felt like he was dying. When he collapsed.

So, if she was right…she’d taken energy from him to break the tether holding on to the girl.

“It wasn’t the shadow that almost killed me,” he whispered. “It was you.”

She flinched but didn’t draw back. “I’m afraid so. I didn’t mean to do it. I didn’t even know that I was doing it until I heard the music. And then…well, when I turned around, and you were on the ground…”

It struck with the force of a blow how useless he was. Ava and Dragon didn’t need him, except as a food source to keep themselves fueled and strong. He was just…fuel. Energy. A tool. No wonder Dragon had abandoned him in exchange for Ava.

I didn’t abandon you, you numbskull. You tried to lock me in a box. I escaped to save myself.

“No, you escaped because she’s stronger than me,” Jerrid rasped, slipping his hand from beneath Ava’s.

He couldn’t stand to feel her touch, knowing that she didn’t care about him, that she was just using him the same way Dragon had used him.

The shadow had been right all along.

About everything.

CHAPTER 23

AVA

Ava recoiled when she saw the look of betrayal in Jerrid’s eyes. Tears stung behind her eyelids as she searched for words to explain, but what could she possibly tell him?