Page 138 of Jinxes and Drumsticks

I stand up, putting myself between Damien and the intruder.

Because that’s Aemon. Here. In the flesh.

And I’m going to fucking kill him.

ㅤ

“I’m sorry. Share?” I ask. “Who the fuck are you?”

I flinch as a nearby tree cracks in half like it’s been struck by lightning. The heavier part of the tree falls toward the stranger. Between one blink and the next, he’s five feet away from Lillith’s felled tree, dusting off his lapel.

“Don’t talk to him, Damien,” Lillith says.

“Oh, stop being dramatic,” the fuckass says. “We’ve already met and had a nice conversation before, anyway. Didn’t we, boy?”

It’s the most bizarre thing when the earth opens up and appears to swallow him like a gaping maw. Lillith isn’t even moving. She’s not holding her hand out in some kind of foreboding gesture, not even whispering any incantation. It’s so strange for the only sounds in the nature reserve to be the subtle rustling of leaves and the croak of toads.

“Damien, what is he talking about?” Lillith says looking back at me.

“Huh?”

A hand breaks through the earth beneath my boots and grasps onto my ankle. I don’t really understand the physics of how it works, but I’m suddenly on my back, tree roots latticing over my legs and hips and binding my arms to my body.

I don’t think to panic until Lillith screams and kneels down, shoving her fingers into the ground. It’s so strange to feel the subtle game of tug-of-war between Lillith and her unseen enemy. The roots writhe tighter and looser, pulling and pushing in a way that conjures mental images of lying in a pit of snakes.

“Baby?” I croak, voice shaking.

She doesn’t answer. Her eyes are the color of moonlight around her constricted pupils. Sweat beads on her temple, carving a line through the bit of makeup still on her face after our run through the forest. I realize with horror that I may have exhausted her enough that she can’t use her magic, and as the clay under my body starts to swallow up my legs, I start to fight against the restraints.

No give. I’m not a weak fucking guy, but I can barely shift my weight. It’s getting hard to even expand my lungs for a full breath.

My hand vanishes under the compacted earth, then my shoulder. Lillith screams again, some emotion between frustration and sorrow. Tears have joined the sweat, her lips contorted into focused grimace, set like obsidian in the pallor of her face. Her eyelids flutter and go heavy, and I can see it. I can see the exertion threatening to trigger a seizure.

“Lillith, baby, stop,” I say.

“No,” she grinds out.

I realize I might die, and I don’t want my final moments to be filled with nothing but my own panic and the despair of the woman I love.

“Lillith,” I say more sharply. “Look at me.”

She does, but her fingers stay in the ground.

“It’s alright,” I say.

“No,” she says even more fiercely.

“If these are going to be my last moments alive, please just kiss me,” I say.

“Damien, no,” she sobs.

“Gods, you are both so dramatic,” the intruder says. I crane my head up to see him appear from behind a tree a few feet away.

“Let him go,” Lillith seethes.

“You can have your plaything back after we have a grown-up conversation,” fuckhead says. “This game of avoidance has gotten old.”

And listen, I’m not saying this guy isn’t a twat waffle. But the roots do finally still. They finally stop pulling me deeper into the cold earth.