I landed on the back of Sk?ll, my blade pointed downward. It sliced through his shoulder, driving deep.
The wolf howled and reared. I barely managed to cling to his massive back with my knees as I yanked the sword from his shoulder and stabbed again. His roar rent the night. He surged up on his back feet, releasing Cade from beneath him and throwing me off his back.
My sword pulled free of his muscles, and I tumbled off him, landing with a hard crash on the ground.
Next to me, Cade leapt up, growling and snapping his teeth as he lunged for Sk?ll. I stumbled to my feet and raised my sword, trying to look as big and threatening as possible.
Ha. As if that would fool Sk?ll.
The great wolf growled once at Cade, rage in his eyes, then turned and ran off into the night.
My muscles sagged, and I dropped my arms to my side. “Holy crap.”
Panting, I bent over, catching my breath. Fear bubbled through me, and I laughed, sounding crazy to my own ears.
Magic shimmered around Cade, and he shifted back to human. I stood, catching sight of his bleeding and mangled arm. More blood oozed from his side and the gash on his thigh.
Worry tugged at my chest. “He got you good.”
Cade winced, raising his arm to inspect it. “His jaws were fierce. You shouldn’t have fought the wolf.”
“Ha. As if I’d leave you.” I inspected his wound. Bile rose in my throat at the flash of white between the destroyed flesh of his arm. Broken.
“Let me help.” I stashed my sword and shield in the ether and raised my hand to hover over his arm.
“No, it’s unnecessary.”
“You need it. I can see your bones.”
He chuckled, then winced. “I can heal myself, remember?”
“Oh, right. Of course.” It had just been the weird poison in the Fae realm he hadn’t been able to heal from. But I was so ready to jump in and save him that I’d forgotten.
Yeah, I was definitely smitten with Cade.
I waited as his magic surged. The lines on his face relaxed as the pain faded, and his muscles unbunched. The torn skin and broken bone knit back together in front of my eyes.
“Wow, you’re good at that,” I said.
“Practice.”
“Yeah, I guess you’ve been doing this a while, huh?” I recalled his side gig fighting in wars for the good guys. He must have been injured a lot.
He just shrugged.
Now was not the time to poke around for more information, so I dug the compass stone from my pocket. It pointed us in the right direction, and we set off. I kept it gripped in one hand, with my sword gripped in the other. Best to be prepared.
The landscape didn’t change much as we walked, but eventually, the stone beneath our feet turned to dirt. There were still jagged rocks all around, but there were fewer.
In the distance, light glowed a bit more brightly. I pointed. “What do you think that is?”
Cade frowned. “Hate to say it, but probably a settlement.”
“Settlement of what, I don’t want to know.”
“Agreed. If we can just—”
He stopped talking as the ground shifted beneath us. Magic sparked on my skin, a warning that made my heart jump into my throat.
Then a root burst out of the earth. There were no trees for miles, from what I could see, but it definitely looked like a root.
Until it twisted into the shape of some kind of monster, with claws and fangs made of rock. It swiped out an arm, rock-claws glinting.
Cade swung his sword, severing the arm. He lunged, taking the head next.
I shoved the compass stone into my pocket and raised my sword. The next monster surged out of the dirt.
It lunged for me, and I beheaded it with a swipe of my blade. The featureless head tumbled to the ground, and the body followed. We fought our way through a field of the creatures, slicing and swiping as we ran.
Their claws dug into my flesh as they burst from the ground, somehow knowing just where I would run. They could probably feel me through the dirt. Every inch of me burned with pain as blood slicked my skin and dampened my clothes.
My sword glinted in the weird orange light from the fiery sky above as I beheaded monster after monster.
At my side, Cade was just as productive, leaving a trail of inhuman bodies. They didn’t bleed or make any noise.
My lungs were burning by the time the monsters finally stopped leaping out of the ground. We were nearly to a lake that gleamed black and slick. I stopped, panting.
Cade halted next to me, his wary gaze scanning the terrain that we’d left behind. The bodies of the monsters looked like broken sticks now. Totally unrecognizable as the beasts that had clawed at my flesh.
If the cuts all over my body didn’t hurt like hell, I might have thought I’d imagined the monsters. Cade didn’t look much better, his neck and hands slicked red with blood.
Why the hell had the monsters stopped?
The sudden thought made dread rise in my chest. Slowly, I turned to face the lake. Was there something here that scared them?
A head broke the surface of the water, black hair smooth against the skull. Huge dark eyes peered up from the water, stark against pale white skin.
The creature’s head was only half out of the water, hair floating around it like weeds. Its eyes were glued to me.
I swallowed hard, my skin gone cold. It looked like the creepy girl from that horror movie where she climbs out of the TV, except this creature was submerged in inky water, staring at me with evil gleaming in its dark eyes.
“Stay away from the water,” I said. “That’s the N?kken. It will try to drown you.”
“You don’t need to tell me twice,” he said.
As quickly as we could, we made our way around the dark lake. The N?kken followed us with its eyes, spinning in the water to keep sight of us. My heart thundered louder with every step. The N?kken’s steady silence and stillness were creepier than an outright attack.
Tension had tightened every muscle in my body by the time I made it to the far side of the lake.
On this side, we were closer to the glowing light that hovered on the far horizon—the settlement.
The N?kken still watched us.
I was about to dig into my pocket for the compass stone when shouts sounded.
I jumped. Cade’s gaze collided with mine.
“Hide,” he mouthed.
I nodded, and we hurried to a tumbled pile of rocks and pressed ourselves into a crevice.
The shouts had gone silent, but I swore I’d heard at least three different voices. Who could they be?
I glanced at Cade, who was so close I could smell his storm-at-sea scent overlaid with the tang of his blood. It turned my stomach.
We could fight them. Or should we just hide?
Something heavy slammed over me.
A net!
I thrashed, trying to break free, but magic imbued the net, binding me tight. Next to me, Cade couldn’t even move. I couldn’t move.
I’d only been thrashing inside my mind.
A silent scream tore through my head, a dull roar brought on by the sheer horror of being incapacitated.
This was worse than anything.