Page 94 of Cursed Shadows 4

A wretched shout rips through me.

I throw myself at his back.

My arm loops around his neck, holding him in place as I strike the knife into every part of him that I can reach. In the frenzy, I stab at his face, his collarbone, my own fucking forearm, but I don’t stop. I stab and stab and stab—

Then he slumps facedown.

I fall with him.

His leg twitches beneath me once, twice… then the swell of his back deflates with his final breath.

I slump.

Under my sagged weight, Boil is utterly motionless.

A harsh sound escapes me as I throw myself off of him.

I fall onto my side, blood pooling all over the frozen soil. I kick around, my hands pressed into the earth, and push myself upright to sit on my bottom.

My chest is heaving, curt breaths that pant through me. I’m sure my face looks absolutely wild, smeared with fresh streaks of Boil’s blood.

Blood sludges under me, but all I can do is heave my gasps with an ugly, guttural sound that is nothing less than primal.

I scoot back from the fresh corpse until I’m on the edge of the blood pool. I rest my forearms on my knees—and for a while, I stare.

His head is turned, cheek pressed to the ground, and so I stare at his slack face; at the glaze of his eyes; at the gape of his too-relaxed mouth.

I’m trapped in a ruby. Red all around me, coating my bare hands, spattered over the dead face not far from my boots, hanging from my lashes in stubborn droplets.

I don’t weep.

I don’t tend to the gash on my forearm.

I just stare.

My knees dig into the underside of my forearms. I flex my fingers against the cool air. Hands are soaked in blood—and, with a bitter smile, I remember that I left my gloves back at my failed fire. I left them behind with the fish and bolted far away from the hound.

Now, my hands tremble, the residue of the fight’s adrenaline pumping through my body, or the effects of the cold biting at my flesh. Maybe both.

I should warm my hands. At least tuck them under my pits to heat them up a little.

But I don’t.

There’s little in me now. Every scrap of power and energy has been burned to ash. Maybe it’s my mind that has been beaten into defeat as I sit here.

I should feel victorious.

I sure as hell don’t feel guilty.

But I do worry that my luck is running out.

My bag of tricks is emptying, fast.

And I don’t have the strength to face another battle.

So I stare at the face of the male I butchered.

Not the first time I have killed on this mountain. But this one… It feels as though it holds up a mirror and forces me to look at what I am becoming.

---