AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“She’s dying, Draven.”
Draven and Ash. I wanted to know the dark Beast’s name, too, but I couldn’t bring myself to force words out.
“Why would they do this to her?” Draven whispered. I felt something run over my head, catching my hair.
Then claws slipped around me, tipping me over. The fresh pain in the burns erupted once more.
But the world took pity on me. Before I could try to scream through my broken throat again, I blacked out.
Chapter Eight
When I came backto consciousness, the first thing I noticed was that the leaves beneath me had vanished.
I was laying on my side on something soft, and covered with warm blankets. Too warm, even, because I was sweating and smelled rather rank.
The first thought to grip me was panic: had the Vostokians found me? Was I back in the church?
But even without opening my eyes, I knew I wasn’t. I forced myself to relax.
Wherever I was, it smelled different. The church air was thick with dust and incense. This place smelled green. Fresh air crept over my face.
I finally opened my eyes, and found myself looking up at a ceiling that was not wood, but the interior of the branch of a tree that was so wide it was bigger than a Vostokian cottage.
I frowned at the skin of brown bark overhead, wondering how that was even possible. Then I saw the walls were also bark; I had been settled into what looked like the world’s biggest knothole, the bottom piled with pillows and blankets in a dizzying array of colors.
A patchwork red and purple quilt had been pulled up to my chin. I pushed it back, gulping down more fresh air, and saw that there was no real door in this strange knothole. The wide opening was just a view of more trees outside, the bark smooth where the tree had been carved away to allow more room.
The smell of herbs reached my nose as I shifted around, trying to climb out of the gargantuan pile of bedding. The pain was still present in my abused back, but bits of dried poultice flaked away as I climbed out and reached the door.
I picked up several brown-green flakes and sniffed them. Willowbark and vervain tickled my nose.
Who had cared for me?
When I reached the door, I found myself looking at a sight I would never forget. My knothole was far from the only one in this massive tree, a monster of an oak. Its trunk was so wide I couldn’t see around it, pockmarked with hundreds of holes, each large enough to be a house on the inside.
A latticework of woven branches led from my knothole to the clearing below. And in that clearing were Beasts.
Pointed ears swiveled, and I immediately withdrew into my knothole again, my heart pounding.
The memory returned to me suddenly. I’d collapsed in the forest, and I’d heard them speaking. The pain of being moved had caused me to pass out.
Then I examined my fingertips, seeing dried blood crusted under my nails again.
Just like last time, when Yana had tended to me.
The monster inside me had broken out that day at the well. Freya had witnessed it, since she knew I hadn’t hurt Father Borodin.
The monster was apparently much more capable of appearing than I’d believed possible. I hadn’t even known it had made an appearance that day.
But why would the Beasts of the Wood have any interest in saving me now? They’d made it very clear I was not wanted in their territory.
I wracked my memory, trying to remember if I’d hurt anyone, but I didn’t think I had. I only remembered running, the exhilaration of letting loose and the fear and being caught.
I couldn’t go down below. Even if I could climb the latticed branches down like a ladder, the werewolves were down there. Ash had wanted to kill me.
But one of them must have cleaned and dressed my back. I huddled back into the blankets with ginger movements, trying not to dislodge any more of the poultice, but I knew this was childish behavior. Wrapping myself in a quilt wasn’t going to save me if the Beasts wanted me dead.
I wasn’t sure how long I spent debating my options, but it felt like at least an hour had passed when I heard the creaking sound of branches.
