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Not when this wicked realm was a heartless bitch.
I pressed my hand to my aching belly. Everyone else had to be in worse shape. We had a two-hour ride to the tunnels, then two days after that before we reached Nightcairn Castle. I prayed somewhere along that route Dane had left supplies.
I sighed. None of these dresses would work.
I couldn’t move in them, I couldn’t fight. Would hardly be able to ride. I reached up and rubbed the mark on my arm. I shouldn’t have been a complete coward. I should have let Zor and Raz tell me everything when they’d offered.
But I’d been distracted by hard, muscled bodies, and…I shivered. Well, I couldn’t exactly regret how my choice had turned out.
Even if I did have to wait to find out what this mark was from.
Before I even made a conscious choice, I was standing in the drafty hallway beneath the dust-covered chandelier, peering at the doors lining the corridor.
Maybe, somewhere in this grand palace, there was something other than a silk ballgown or a dress slit up to my thigh. I clutched the towel tighter around me, dripping water all over the floor.
The Wynters’ room was right across the hall.
Lord Wynter, surely, had left something behind. Breeches, a shirt, perhaps a jacket. Boots would be nice, though I doubted our feet were anywhere close to the same size.
I ducked into the dark room, getting my bearings as shadows became shapes. The enormous dragon bed was to my right—ruby eyes glinting—and straight in front of me was a hulking wardrobe, big enough to contain five men. From the clothing strewn all over, everyone had already raided Lord Wynter’s wardrobe, but if there were breeches to be had, they’d be in there.
I made it all of two steps when something enormous rose from the darkness behind the bed.
The floor rocked beneath me.No, that was me, swaying violently. Just that quickly, fear turned me into prey, eyes fixed on the beast shedding those shadows like the water streaming from my hair.
I had to run.
But every muscle was locked up.
If I wanted to live, I had to force my leaden feet tomove, but they wouldn’t, the creature and I staring at each other. I was completely exposed, the stupid towel clutched to my heaving chest, my feet bare, and I’d left my knife in the bedroom.
Foolish, foolish girl, and now you’re going to die.
How did this thing get past Zor and the others? Were we under attack?
“You need to leave, Anaria.Now.”
At first, I thought I heard Tavion’s urgent warning in my head, before I realized the voice came from the monster before me.
“Please. I don’t want you seeing me like this.”Broken. That’s how Tavion sounded. Broken and small and humiliated. How many times had I wanted to hear him like this?Too many. But now, now all that voice did was tug at my heartstrings in ways it shouldn’t have.
He sank back to the floor, the darkness swallowing him up. “Please leave. And don’t come back.” Anguish thrummed beneath every word, while I eyed the door behind me. I hoped this wasn’t what I thought it was, but one quick inhale told me otherwise.
Panic soured the air, panic and fear and desperation.
The rug on the floor was shredded, and so was the floor beneath it, splinters everywhere.
Had he been in here for hours? Trying to shift?
Fuck it. I tightened my grip on the towel and rounded the bed, letting my eyes adjust.Oh gods…Oh gods, I should go find someone. I should…
He was down on all fours, his head hung so low I couldn’t see his face, only hear his raspy, anguished voice. “Please. Please just leave. I’ll be all right in a minute. I just need more time.”
Tavion was caught mid shift, but unlike Lucius, his magic had done something hideous to him. He was twice his usual size, even bigger than his wolf form, pale skin and fur and something that looked like gray, scaly skin covering his body.
I didn’t know what to do.
But I couldn’t leave him like this.
