Shock held me immobile. I couldn’t believe it even though I’d always known I’d see him again. I’d expected, practically waited for his return, but I still wasn’t prepared to find myself standing above him.
Suddenly I thought of the premonition. He’s coming. I’d been wrong. It had nothing to do with the Commander of the Iron Knights.
It had been about him.
A high-pitched giggle parted my lips, shocking me. I smacked my hand over my mouth, body tensing.
He didn’t move.
Suddenly I wondered if this moment was why I’d felt what I had all those years ago in Union City. That maybe it had been a warning that one day our paths would cross, and he would need my help.
Like he had helped Grady and me that night.
I owed him.
But he was a Hyhborn lord— a Deminyen— and all I could think of was that damn garter snake.
Returning to the table, I swallowed. “Please . . . please don’t hurt me.”
I gripped the top of the lunea spike, gasping. The stone was warm. Hot. I closed my eyes, then pulled. The spike didn’t budge.
“Oh, come on,” I muttered, prying open an eye. I placed my hand on his chest, beside the wound. His skin . . . it was unnaturally hard, but I felt and heard nothing. I didn’t know if that was because of what he was or because my thoughts were just too chaotic for my senses to kick in, but there was a far bigger concern than potentially discovering whether I could read a Hyhborn like I could a mortal or if they would be like a caelestia.
What if I couldn’t get the stakes out?
Taking another breath, I closed my eyes and yanked again. The wet sound of the lunea slipping, tearing back through his flesh, turned my stomach. I choked on a gag as it came free. Dropping the stake to the straw-strewn floor below, I opened one eye and then the other. The jagged skin of the hole in his chest . . . smoked.
All right, I wasn’t going to think about that. My hand shook as I reached for the spike in his left thigh.
A thud from somewhere outside the stall jerked my head around. My stomach dropped. Shit. Making sure the hood of my cloak was still up, I crept back to the edge of the stall and waited for another sound. When I didn’t hear anything, I stepped into the aisle. The barn doors remained closed. The sound had likely been an animal running about. Probably a rat. A large one. I’d seen some the size of small dogs.
Shuddering, I started to step back—
A rush of air stirred the edges of my cloak. I went completely still, holding my breath. Shivery awareness broke out across the nape of my neck. Tiny hairs rose there and along my arms. The atmosphere of the barn shifted, thickened. Slowly, I turned.
Four lunea spikes remained, glistening with bright red blood, embedded deep in the table— the otherwise empty table.
The gas lamp went out, plunging the stall and the barn into utter, absolute darkness.
Instinct, that fickle bitch that had led me here, was telling me something else now. To move. To get the hell out. To run.
I made it a step before a body crashed into mine, taking me down. Air punched out of my lungs as I hit the hay-strewn floor hard. What Grady had shown me about how to defend myself over the years— what I’d had to learn the hard way— propelled my body into action. My fingers scraped against the floor as I lifted my hips, attempting to throw the heavy weight off me.
The Hyhborn lord pressed me into the dust and dirt as the sound rumbling out of him, and simultaneously through me, turned my blood cold. The growl was something akin to that of an animal— a very angry, very wild animal. Every muscle in my body locked up. In those brief seconds, I realized he might not be able to recognize me— or be able to even see me in the condition that he was in.
“Leaving so soon?” he snarled. “Just . . . as the fun begins? I don’t think so.”
He moved so fast— everything happened so fast, giving me no time to react. He jerked me off the floor. I stumbled, hitting the edge of the table. Buckets rattled, tipping over. I jumped away from the falling buckets. My booted feet slipped out from underneath me. I went down again, cracking my knees off the floor— the blood-covered floor— and it . . . oh no, it was still warm. I could feel it soaking my knees, coating my palms. I gasped, starting to push up.
“You wanted . . . my blood so badly,” he seethed, his voice gravelly and nothing like I’d remembered it sounding. “Now you . . . you will drown in it.”
My startled cry was ended by the hand that clamped down on my throat, allowing only the thinnest breath to pass. He hauled me to the side like I was nothing more than a rag doll. Panic exploded from deep within as I grabbed his hand and shoved my elbow back into his stomach. Pain exploded along my arm as I met hard, unyielding flesh. I tried to pry his fingers loose, but they didn’t budge as he dragged me across the floor. Straw dug into my hip as my arm banged into one of the still-standing buckets. Horror sank its claws into me. He fully intended to do as he threatened— drown me in his blood.