Page 58 of A Bond in Flames

They sped across the clearing again, and this time, the claws sliced across my cheek. “Fuck.” I needed to get back on Zuri and get the hell out of here, but she was nervous, dancing away, torn between running and her instinct to stay and protect me. I tapped her front leg. “Let me up, Zuri,” I said again. “Come on, sweet girl.”

Her eyes were huge, but this time, she lifted her leg, and I gripped on to hoist myself back up—

Something slammed into me, knocking me back to the ground. “Fuck.” I quickly rolled to my feet again. “Fucking show yourself, asshole,” I called, in pain, scared, and pissed the hell off.

A branch cracked to my left, and I twisted toward it. Something moved in the shadows, slow now and in an odd, stilted way. My instincts took over all else, telling me to run, but there was no outrunning whatever this was.

They stepped closer, closer still, then finally into the clearing.

Zuri shrieked and reared.

Holy fuck.This was no demon or other creature, and it wasn’t a lost soul either.

What stood before me had to have been brought to life using the foulest of magic or the kind of power I quaked at the thought of. A female walked awkwardly toward me. Dirt stained her rotting, tattered clothes, skin hung from bone, and her long blonde hair was stringy around her skeletal face.

One moment, she was two yards away, walking as if her bones were about to snap, and the next, she was in front of me, her skeletal hand wrapped around my throat, gnashing her blunt teeth. I shoved my forearm against her bony throat, the smell of rot stinging my nose.

“G-give… it to me,” she said disjointedly.

“What do you want?” I growled out.

“Give it to… me.”

“Back the fuck up, and I’ll give you whatever the hell you want.”

She jerked forward more viciously, and I strained to push her back, then slammed my palm against her skull and fired my magic into her. She flew backward, slamming into a tree, but was back on her feet, and in a blink, she was in front of me, snapping her teeth. I did it again and again, hitting her hard with my magic, but she got back up every single time. I gave her more and more, until I felt my powers begin to weaken; she was draining me.Fuck.

She rushed back, and I shoved my arm against her throat again and smashed my fist into her jaw repeatedly to try and dislocate it. If she couldn’t bite me, I only had the long, sharp nails to contend with. She shrieked, her head jerking forward, jaw snapping at speed. I punched her again, and one side of her jaw drooped, only a piece of rotting flesh holding it in place.

“Alga, stop!”

Death’s voice echoed through the forest around us. She froze instantly, forgetting about me completely, and turned.

“That’s it,” he said roughly. “Come to me.” She was at his side a second later. He wrapped his arms around her. “You shouldn’t be wandering,” he said.

“N-no… D-Death,” she said. It was garbled, disjointed.

“It’s okay now. It’ll be okay.”

“H-help… Alga,” she said.

“I will,” he rasped as he held her face in his hands and looked down at her. He smiled, kindness shining in his eyes—but then he tore her skull from her shoulders, and her body collapsed, falling in a heap at his feet. He dropped her skull with the rest of her bones, breathing hard.

“Mors—”

“I told you to stay at the castle. She could have killed you,” he said.

“Who is she?”

He looked up at me. “Go back to the castle, Zinnia.”

“I’m going to need you to explain what the fuck just happened here.”

He held my gaze. “Now.” His voice was filled with fury. He was not going to tell me anything, not one damn thing.

Movement on the ground caught my eye. The bones, they were reforming, the head rolling back to the neck, the jaw clicking back in place. “What the fuck is she?”

He strode to me, grabbed my hips, and tossed me onto Zuri’s back; then he took her face in his hands. “Take her to the castle, and do not stop. Do you understand, Zuri?”

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