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All it took was a thought, and the wound closed beneath the leather while the corpse grew frantic. Such was their plight as their minds were too simple to grasp what lay beyond their mortal realms.
Whatever Yarin whispered into his mind calmed him, and my brother strolled over to a woman who wept over the body of a man—presumably, her husband.
He stroked his fingers through her matted brown hair, then grinned up at me. “Under all that filth, I daresay she’s beautiful.”
“Also, alive.”
“Nothing that can’t be fixed.”
Ada’s heart beat faster, stumbling over its irregularity as Yarin pulled a knife from its sheath. “He can’t just kill her.”
“He won’t.” Not in her sense. Eilam loved to preach about how there needed to be a balance between the three of us, throwing a fit whenever one of us ended a life. “Close your eyes, little one.”
She didn’t.
Of course she didn’t.
My little mortal watched as Yarin leaned over the woman, placing the knife in her lap and his mouth to her ear. “First, little Henry taken by yellow fever, and now Thomas… What’s there left to live for?Nothing. Why not put an end to this misery?” Without a single tremble, the woman took the knife and pressed the glinting blade to her neck. “Do it. You know you want to. Can’t stand the thought of continuing like this. Do it now. Cut!”
One slice, deep enough that dark red blood sprayed from the woman’s neck with each dying beat of her heart, raining down on her husband’s corpse, soaking the front of her dress.
I tasted bile.
Not mine.
My little mortal leaned away from me before she retched onto the ground. She emptied her stomach of her breakfast as all strength leeched from her muscles. I would need to find her food and, if possible, a bed so she may rest.
“Shh…” I pressed a hand to the back of her sweat-covered neck, sensing how the exhaustion of the day finally overpowered her. “See, my little one? Your plight could be worse. You could have ended in the arms of my brother instead.”
“I didn’t think this through,” Yarin yapped as he bound the soul. “That’s on you, Enosh. Always rushing me. Now look how she bled out, her skin all pale and sickly. At least fix the wound or it’ll make odd slapping sounds each time I thrust into her. Who wants that?”
With a sigh, I closed the wound, then let the woman rise. “Two more. Hurry up. My little one is tired and in pain.”
“That one over there, with the spear stuck in the head. Oh, don’t cry, sweet thing.” Yarin stroked tears from the woman’s face that would dry out soon enough on their own. “There will be no more hunger, no sorrows. I’ll take care of you now, yes?”
The woman nodded. “Yes. You’ll take care of me.”
“That’s right, my love. You’re mine now, and I’ll have you in any way I want.”
“Any way you want,” she crooned and pressed her hips flush against him. “I love you.”
“Of course you do.” Yarin’s eyes snapped to mine as my veins heated, but they ignited when he grinned and asked, “Jealous?”
Chapter12
Ada
“We shall bed down at the tavern,” Enosh said, steering toward the glinting lights of the town ahead. “You need a warm meal, a bed, and rest. Something I should have taken into consideration, but… I haven’t had to care for a mortal in a long time.”
He said it as though he wanted to apologize for starving me half a day but didn’t quite know how. “Thank you.”
The tips of his fingers slowly raked over my scalp, which he did often, seemingly content with the monotone motion. “How come you never remarried?”
“Probably because proposals are sparse around barren women who got their husbands killed.” Beyond tired, I let myself sink back against his chest. “Eternity will feel twice as long if I keep wondering so… will you tell me how Njala died?”
There was a long beat of silence until he finally cleared his throat. “There was an argument between Lord Tarnem and me when he demanded more corpses than we’d agreed upon. Against my telling her not to get involved, Njala left the Pale Court without my knowledge to speak to her father.”
“Orlaigh helped her sneak away?”
