AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Good thing I was a lefty.
The shooter’s footsteps approached and even though it went against every instinct screaming in my nerve endings, I rolled to defend myself, snapping the wooden back of the arrow on the ground as I threw my blade, brokering no fucking mercy.
The wound in my shoulder protested in blazing agony and white spots flashed over my eyes as I pushed myself to my feet.
The blade embedded in the stag’s eye, and he fell, thrashing wildly on the ground. The mask saved him from the extra inch of the blade that would’ve been his death. Too bad I’d have to waste another because he was making way too much fucking noise.
I went to draw my last blade, but my hand came up empty, and I cursed, searching the ground for it, but I saw no glint of steel on the dark mulchy ground.
“Would you shut up,” I hissed, reaching for the last resort. The blade Corvus had given me. The one I still wasn’t entirely comfortable with. I guess now was as good a time as any to consecrate it unless I wanted to tear the blade from his eye and risk him screaming bloody murder before I could slit his throat.
A loudknockmade me jump, and I spun to find the stag fucker knocked out by the boulder, his body limp and blood running down his mask. He’d thrashed so hard he knocked himself out. I resisted the manic urge to laugh, snorting instead, wondering offhandedly if my own blood loss was getting to me because that had to be the funniest shit I’d seen in a while.
Did that make me crazy?
Guess it didn’t matter.
“Okay, then,” I said, and before I could think too much about it, grabbed the metal arrowhead and forced it out of my shoulder with a grunt. Nausea rolled in my stomach, and I swallowed back bile, kneeling on the less sore knee to tear another strip from the hem of my tattered Prada dress.
Becca was going to kill me for ruining it.
I used the swath of overpriced fabric to tie tightly around the wound, winding it under my armpit and pulling it tight with my teeth. Not my best patch job, but it would have to do.
I hesitated before leaving the half dead stag, fingers itching to retrieve the blade sticking out of his eye. Odd, how I felt absolutely no remorse for permanently blinding him, but all the guilt in the world for leaving that blade where it was to hopefully prevent him from dying out here in the dark.
He looked young. Strong. What if he was like my guys?
He could have his reasons.
Just as I had mine.
Try not to kill them,Grey told me.
I made no promises, but this was metryinglike he asked. Fucker better appreciate it because my shoulder hurt like a bitch, and my left hand was happy to dole out revenge.
With one last groan, I took off again, slower this time. Methodical. Focusing more on keeping quiet and hidden than covering ground. Since the latter didn’t seem to be working out for me.
One blade left. I’d have to use it wisely with four more goons stalking the woods looking for me.
I followed the sound of the music upward, which seemed odd since I thought the road was the opposite way. Unless my sense of direction was just completely screwed at this point.
The trees ahead thinned out and more moonlight pushed between the trunks, making their shadows slant down over the ground like black bars in a ghostly cage.
I shivered, my mouth falling open as the view ahead opened up.
I knew exactly where I was.
Gripped with a sense of foreboding, I pushed my aching legs to move me the rest of the way up the slope to its ledge and stared out over the lake.
Moonlight kissed the rippling black water seventy feet below me, and to my right, maybe a mile as the crow flies, the Docks perched on wooden stilts over the lake. Pulsing with music and light andlife.
So close.
So fucking far.
The sound of an arrow being notched into a bow had me dropping to the ground, crouching to find my attacker, crow handled blade lifted, pinched between my thumb and forefinger.
He stepped out of the shadows of the trees to my right, unfurling to his full height like he’d been there this whole time. Waiting. Like Diesel St. Crow knew it would come to this. Here. Right now.
