I wasn’t prepared to be flung from its shoulder. I went flying backward through the air, slammed into the chesterfield in the rear seating cozy, bounced off it, crashed into a chair, got tangled in one of Barrons’ expensive rugs, and skidded across the polished floor. My head smacked into the enameled fireplace.
For a moment, all I could do was lie there. Every bone in my body was bruised. Blood was crusted on my face and in the corners of my eyes.
With a moan of pain, I rolled over and propped myself up on an elbow to assess the damage. At least my arm wasn’t broken, as I’d thought it was.
I pushed my hair from my face.
And froze. Standing in the dim light of the bookstore was a shape that was devastatingly familiar. “Come out of the shadows,” I said.
A low growl was the only reply.
“Please, can you understand me? Come out.”
It hulked near a bookcase, panting. It was enormous, at least nine feet tall. Silhouetted against the moonlight filtering through a window behind it, it had three sets of sharp, curved horns spaced at even intervals along two bony ridges that spanned the sides of its head.
I’d seen horns like that before. My pouch of stones had been tied to similar ones. Horns I’d watched melt away when the beast wearing them resumed its human form.
In the Silvers, Barrons had been slate gray with yellow eyes during the day and black-skinned with crimson eyes at night. This one was in full night mode, velvety black in the darkness but for the glint of feral eyes. I’d heard more of these beasts back in the street, before this one had carried me off. Where had they come from?
My hands began to tremble. I pushed gingerly into a sitting position, acutely aware of every stretched tendon and strained muscle. I leaned back against the fireplace, drew my knees up and hugged them. I didn’t trust myself to stand. This creature was the same kind of beast Barrons had been and was a connection to the man I’d lost.
What was it doing here? Was he still somehow protecting me, even in death? Had he assigned others of his kind to guard me if the worst happened and he was killed?
The thing in the shadows suddenly turned and smashed a taloned fist into the bookcase. Tall shelves rocked on floor bolts. With a metallic screeeech, the ornate case ripped from the floor and began to fall. It crashed into the one next to it, and the one next to that, taking them down like dominoes, making a complete wreck of my bookstore.
“Stop it!” I cried.
But if it could understand, or even hear me over the noise, it didn’t care. It turned on the magazine rack and shattered it next. Dailies and monthlies flew in a storm of pages and splinters of shelving. Chairs slammed into the walls. My TV was stomped. My fridge crushed. My cash register exploded in a tinkle of bells.
It raged through the store, trashing the entire first floor, decimating everything I loved, reducing my cherished sanctuary to ruins.
All I could do was huddle and stare.
When there was nothing left to smash or break, it whirled on me.
Moonlight silvered its ebony skin and glinted off crimson eyes. Veins and tendons stood out on its arms and neck, and its chest pumped like a bellows. Bits of debris were stuck to its horns. It shook its head violently, and bits of plaster and wood sprayed the air.
It stared at me from a prehistoric face, through long hanks of matted black hair, with hate-filled eyes.
I stared back, afraid to breathe. Had it saved me to kill me? It was no more than I deserved, really.
It was a walking reminder of what I’d had—and lost. What I’d never seen clearly—and killed. It was so much like my creature in the Silvers, yet so different. Barrons had been uncontrollably homicidal, unable—or unwilling—to prevent himself from slaughtering everything in sight, no matter how small or helpless. Back on that cliff’s edge, in Barrons’ eyes, I’d glimpsed madness.
This beast was a killing machine, too, but not a mindless one. There was no insanity in its eyes, only fury and bloodlust.
It was Barrons … but it wasn’t.
I closed my eyes. Looking at it hurt my soul.
It growled deep in its chest, much closer than it had been a moment ago.
My eyes snapped open.
It stood a half dozen feet away, towering over me, brimming with unspent rage. Feral eyes were fixed on my neck, taloned hands opened and closed as if it wanted nothing more than to wrap them around it and squeeze.
I rubbed the base of my skull, grateful for Barrons’ mark. Apparently it was still protecting me, because the creature hadn’t harmed me, although it wanted to. I wondered if his mark protected me from the entire “pack” of Barrons-like creatures. He’d said he’d never let me die. It seemed he’d taken measures to continue his protection if something happened to him. Like Ryodan and me and a spear.
“Thank you,” I whispered.
My words seemed to enrage it. It lunged for me, grabbed me by the collar of my coat, raised me in the air, and shook me like a rag doll. My teeth clacked together and my bones rattled.
Perhaps the mark wasn’t protecting me after all.
I wasn’t dying here tonight. The itinerary of my mission might have changed, but my goal had not. As I dangled, toes skimming the floor, I let my gaze go unfocused, sought my lake, and summoned my crimson runes. They’d kept the Unseelie Princes at a standoff, and the Fae princes were far more deadly and powerful than this beast.
Other things floated on the surface of my lake, but I ignored them. There would be plenty of time—more time than I wanted, I was sure—in my future to explore all that was concealed beneath those dark, still waters. I cupped my hands, scooped up what I’d come for, and snapped out of it, fast.
The beast was still shaking me. Staring into its narrowed eyes, I realized I might need to revise my earlier assessment that it wasn’t as insane as Barrons had been.
I raised my fists, dripping blood. The ebon-skinned beast shook its horned head and roared.
“Put me down,” I commanded.
It moved so fast that it had my entire hand in its mouth before I could even gasp. The word “down” hadn’t even left my lips when my hand was gone and sharp black fangs were locked around my wrist.
But it didn’t rip my hand off, as I expected. It sucked. Its tongue was wet and warm on my fingers, working delicately between them.
As suddenly as it had swallowed my hand, it dropped it. My fist was empty.
I stared blankly at it. Runes that the most deadly of the Fae feared, this thing ate? Like a succulent appetizer? It licked its lips. Was I the main course? In a blur of motion, my other fist disappeared.