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He let the horse thrust into a canter, passing town after town until my arse burned nearly as much as my tear-filled eyes. The wind made it only worse as we thundered along a dirt trail that eventually changed into theca-lop-ca-lopof iron clashing cobblestone, lights illuminating windows from afar. I twisted and dug my face into Enosh’s shirt, dampening it with my tears.
This late in the evening, villagers paid us no mind. Not until a man spotted the horse’s white eyes, starting that first mumble, which soon hushed across the village like the foreboding breeze of a storm.They all came together—some wearing their nightcaps—while sleepy-eyed children hid behind skirts as they took in our dead steed.
After Enosh passed the scorching waft of heat from a quiet forge, he rode the horse up to the tavern and dismounted. “I sense the tension in your muscles and the sickness roiling in your belly.” He pulled me down, immediately steadying me on my gnarled legs. “Dare run, mortal, and I shall have the most decrepit corpses the ground has to offer drag you back.”
Sickness wasn’t nearly strong enough a word to describe all the nasty things I wanted to spit at him. After a month at the Pale Court, I’d nearly forgotten how the world outside suffered, fathers feeding their dead children to the wolves just to keep them from wandering.
I pushed his chest. “Right now, I’d crawl through the shit in the streets to get away from you.”
He gripped my arms with bruising strength and shook me. “You want to leave me?”
“How could I not want to leave you? Any woman in her right mind would!”
Something ignited in his eyes. “Then my brother shall give you a wrong mind!”
“I hate you.” I lifted my chin high and met his stormy gaze. “I hate you so much that not even your brother is powerful enough to change that.”
His head jerked back as if I’d struck him. It lasted for the fraction of a breath before his gray eyes darkened with… I wasn’t sure.
He picked me up, carried me up the steps to the tavern, and kicked the door open. “Oh, little one, how you’ll scream my name within the next hour.”
“The fuck I will.”
Behind the door, the three-story tavern lay empty—aside from the town’s drunkard leaning crooked against a wall of wattle and daub. The stench of ale soured between the cracks of rough-hewn tables and benches. Beside them, the tavern keeper stared at us from underneath her plain, cotton wimple.
She blinked wide eyes at Enosh, her hands fumbling with her brown skirts as she curtsied. “I think… I think I know who you are. Heard stories as a wee lass.”
“Then you’ll know it best to be quiet about it.”
She nodded. “Does the King need a boy to lead his horse to the stables?”
Enosh frowned. “My horse is in need of nothing, but I require your best room. You will bring us fresh meats, warm bread, and berries if you can find them. I also expect a tub to be brought to our room filled with clean, warm water and a rag.”
She stared at me for a moment until, with a start, she worked herself out of her daze. “Yes, Your Grace. Gretchen!” Fingers snapped toward the narrow archway behind her. “Come to heel, girl! We have a guest, none less than the King of Flesh and Bone himself. Go prepare the large room. Take the driest kindle—”
“No fire.” Enosh rummaged through the pocket of his breeches, letting a handful of gold coins clink into the woman’s meaty palm. “Will this cover the night?”
“Your Grace is too generous,” she said, reaching the coins back to him. “After a life full of nothing but tales about you from some stinky old priests… I don’t want your gold.”
“My woman is weary. Let this be clear, I will not tolerate your begging at my door. Take the coin, for none of your kin will find rest with me.”
The woman chuckled, a hearty sound that shook her entire belly. “I have no children. All kin abandoned me when I was a young lass. All I have are three dead husbands who broke my heart and my purse. I beg of you, do not let them rot.”
“I can tell we’ll be good friends.” Enosh turned toward the stairs, following a pale Gretchen, pressing me tighter against his chest as he whispered, “I shall raise corpses outside for protection. Nobody leaves this town… least of all, you.”
Chapter13
Ada
Isat in the small tub Gretchen had brought, posture stiffening whenever Enosh rubbed a soaked rag over my back. Even though steam billowed on the surface, his touch brought chills to my skin. What sort of monster would stir up a child’s corpse? And let Anna’s little teeth cut into her mother’s neck, with the little ribbon bouncing—
I pressed my hand onto my mouth to stifle a sob, a sick feeling twisting my gut. “She was a little girl, Enosh… probably not even four when she died.”
Behind me, a low growl trembled his chest. “We will not speak of it.”
“Can you imagine the desperation of a mother if she offers her warm body to the god who cursed her only child with eternal cold? To let him fuck her in the most ungodly ways—”
“By nature, I fuck in godly ways,” he scoffed, tossing the rag into the tub with a splash. “Luring nothing but the sweetest moans and gasps from your skilled lips.”
