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My fists were clenched so hard my nails bit into my palms. “You know nothing of me.”
The Beast inched closer, but I gave no ground. Maybe it was the anger keeping me rooted in place even as I stared my death down.
“On the contrary, we have been watching and waiting for a very long time,” he said quietly. “Now we tire of the waiting.”
He offered the rock again, jostling the crow. The bird fluffed his feathers with annoyance.
“I revoke your invitation, Salem of Vostok. Until you open your eyes, you are no longer welcome to wander the Wood freely.”
My anger failed under the ice that washed through me. This was the end, then.
I reached out and took the rock back with shaking hands.
The Beast curled his lips in a smile. “Now you may run.”
I didn’t stop to think, or to grab my lantern. I just turned and bolted, following the babbling spring and sprinting past it. The crow fluttered overhead, cawing as he wheeled towards Vostok.
I heard the Beast behind me. He was toying with me, holding back, making a lot of noise as he crashed through brush and past trees, but every time I felt hot breath on my neck, or the brush of claws against my skirt, he vanished again.
A sob escaped me as I stumbled towards Vostok, tripping over roots in the darkness. Was he going to let me get close enough to believe I’d made it before he ran me down? Would they find my skinned corpse over the well next?
My heart was pounding, my mouth filled with the copper taste of blood when the mist parted and I saw one of the runestones ahead of me, draped with blue ropes.
The Beast chuckled from behind a veil of mist, close enough that I could reach out and touch him. “Faster, Salem. Faster. If you break free, you might outrun me…”
I felt it then, the anger rushing up hot and fast. I felt the same swiftness that I had in my dreams, the lithe body that could outrun the wind.
“Stop playing games with me!” I snarled, and my fingers and teeth ached with phantom pain.
It had been too long since I’d had the tea. Panic speared me. The thing inside me was trying to break free, responding to the Beast’s call.
That panic gave my feet wings. If it broke loose, no one would be safe. I was a danger to all of Vostok.
I gasped for breath as the ropes drew closer, and felt the Beast’s claws on my skirt. The sound of shredding cloth filled the air.
“So close,” he whispered behind me. “So close to the truth and yet so far away.”
I couldn’t allow it to break free. I slammed my hands over my ears, shutting out his words, and made a last desperate sprint.
The fraying blue rope snapped when I crashed through it, landing sprawled on the hard-packed path.
The Beast stopped just past the runestone, refusing to cross even though the rope was broken.
He stared down at me, amber eyes narrowed. “Disappointing.”
I stared up at him, gasping for breath as my lungs burned, my clothes torn and hair full of leaves.
As I watched, he shook his head and turned, vanishing into the mist. He hadn’t meant to kill me at all.
It was against everything I’d learned. We all knew what happened when one of us was marked by a Beast.
When he hadn’t returned after several long, tense minutes, I finally got to my feet. I’d been clutching the rock so hard my hand ached. I slipped it in my pocket, and finally turned my feet towards Freya’s house.
I’d left the bruised and wilted herbs on her doorstep and was ready to sneak back into the church when a hard hand closed around my upper arm.
Father Borodin glared down at me, his eyes full of murder. “Why are you sneaking around at night, Salem?”
Chapter Five
