AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I wondered if he felt my heart hammering against his palm.
The Beast made a rumbling noise, and I took the offering of safe passage without a word of dissent.
Leaving the clearing felt like leaving a fairy tale, a place where monsters came to life and snatched maidens. As I practically dragged the Augur behind me, I heard rising snarls and even a roar of pain, and moved faster.
The old man didn’t come to his senses until the blue barriers of Vostok were within sight. Then he moved faster than I would’ve believed, filling me with irritation that he’d made me drag him all that way if he was perfectly capable of walking like this himself.
My heart was still pounding, but somehow everything seemed duller and grayer, as though the Beasts themselves had been so vibrant and real that everything else was flat in comparison.
I almost wanted to see them again. To look the fairy tale in the face and come away feeling alive.
I adjusted my veil as I ducked under the ropes and slowly followed the Augur to the church, knowing my face was still flushed with fear and excitement. He moved so quickly he was soon out of sight.
I’d left the basket in the woods, so the day had been for nothing… but I had seen the Beasts again.
And they clearly wanted something from me.
I couldn’t pin down why it made me feel so giddy. But that was a dangerous feeling to have in Vostok, because the second I walked into the church’s back door, I was slammed against the wall.
“Is it true?” Father Borodin asked, wine-soaked breath washing over me. I tried not to gag, protesting.
“The Beasts came after us, Father.” He gripped me so tightly my arms screamed in protest. “But one… did defend us from the other.”
The Augur was already slumped at the kitchen table, nursing a cup of dark tea and whisky, from the boozy smell of it. “She’s in league with them, Borodin. The Beasts were slavering to tear me apart, and this heinous little bitch was ready to offer me up to them.”
I fell silent as the Father squeezed me tighter. What the hell was he talking about?
“If I hadn’t dragged her back to the village, she’d be rutting with them right now. Shewantsthis village to fall.”
I stared at the Augur, betrayal leeching away the last of the giddiness. The old man shot me a leering grin over the mug of tea as Father Borodin’s nostrils flared.
I should have known better.
This was what I got for speaking my mind to the old bastard. I never should’ve opened my mouth to call him a liar. I never should’ve tried to defend myself, or pretended to be anything other than an object to him.
“Is this true?” he asked, bloodshot eyes boring into mine.
“No—”
“She’s not just impure, Borodin. She’s completely corrupted by them. I’m not sure even a full purification will wash the evil from her soul.”
I opened my mouth to declare my innocence, that if it were not for me, the Augur would be a pile of minced meat in the Wood, but the Father gripped my jaw hard enough to send shooting pains through my face and neck.
“We’ll try regardless. And if that doesn’t work, we’ll breed another.” He shook me, his knuckles standing out white from the force of his grip.
The Augur nodded solemnly, his eyes dancing.
I should have let Ash have him.
Chapter Seven
“Are you working on the Beasts’behalf?”
I had no idea how many times he’d asked me that question. It was the same thing, over and over, punctuated with sharp lashes.
Was I working with them? Was I fucking them? Had I sneaked out at night to destroy the barrier blessings and let them in?
I’d long since stopped shaking my head no. There was no fighting against the punishment. Father Borodin had refused to listen to a word in my defense, taking the Augur at face value—and the more the old herbalist lied, the more he seemed to actually believe in the new story he’d spun.
