Page 119 of Lifebound

Incubi ran toward her, knives and swords in hand. She remained calm, her step never faltering, and I almost screamed at her to watch out.

But when they stepped onto the darkness she’d covered the ground with, they stopped. They let go of their weapons. Wrapped their hands around their necks while their eyes rolled in their skulls like they were being choked.

Seconds later, they fell to the ground like all their strings had been suddenly cut. I could see it, not just because they’d come close, but because the sun was already on the rise, and the sky had begun to lighten up.

The closer to Rune that woman went, the more that darkness spread until it reached him. By then, the remaining incubi had already retreated, and the horses had run away. Rogue was walking backward with that knife in his hand still, and Rune was alive, a hand over his knee as he waited for the woman to approach him.

The darkness disappeared, slipped into the ground when she reached out her hand for him. Rune took it and jumped to his feet. Said something, but they were too far away for me to hear it, and it was too dark to read his lips.

The incubi were not coming back, and those who’d tried to attack the woman and had fallen weren’t getting up, though I could tell their chests were moving. They were still alive.

My eyes closed and my body let go of me, and the soil underneath my cheek actually felt nice.

Somehow, we’d gone through that and we were both still alive.

For the moment, that’s the only thing I cared about.

thirty-two

“Don’t move.”

Rune was squatting in front of me, looking at my leg. The pain was so fucking intenseI’d barely managed to turn over.

“It’s not broken but you can’t step on it,” he told me, as if the woman who’d just saved his life wasn’t even there.

He looked up at me and my heart squeezed. He was such a bloody mess, skin cut in so many places, bruises marring his pale skin. I could see him so much better now because the sun was almost up all the way and the sky was becoming bluer by the minute.

“Youthrewme away,” I said, unable to help myself, because the woman had moved farther back as she searched the trees for something—or just made sure that we were alone.

“Yes, well, they would have gotten to you. I had no choice,” Rune said.

“How about letting me stay there with you instead of facing them all alone—how’s that for a choice?”

He raised a brow. “And what do you suppose you could have done against all those incubi?”

“I don’t know—I could have bitten them or something. I have teeth.” I pulled my lips up and showed him.

Except he didn’t seem to get the gravity of the situation because he was trying to stifle a smile. “You do have teeth, Wildcat.”

“This is serious, Rune. They almost killed you.”

“But they didn’t. This is going to hurt a little bit. Scream if you need to,” he said and put his hands underneath me.

“I can walk,” I said, but the moment he pulled me up, I realized that was bullshit. The pain was incredible, and my right leg was now completely paralyzed. I wouldn’t be able to even walk two feet without falling on my face.

My eyes squeezed shut and I pulled my lips inside my mouth to keep from making a sound because I didn’t want to scream. Who knew what lived in this damn forest? I didn’t want anything to hear us. I planned not to fuck this up again if I could help it.

Rune moved as slowly as he could to secure his arm underneath my wounded leg without causing me pain, but it was impossible. I didn’t even want to see what it looked like because the slightest pressure made me feel like it was going to fall off me completely.

“This okay?” he whispered, and I wrapped my arms around his neck as well as I could.

“Yes.” He was here and he was alive. And he had his arms around me—it was most definitely okay.

Then the woman stepped in front of us.

I looked at her face for the first time—reallylooked at her. Dark hair and dark eyes, pointy ears, pale skin without a wrinkle in sight, and the dress she wore was a mixture of velvet and leather and lace. It was tight around her arms and torso, then flared out from the hips down, the skirt more fluffy than that of my dress, and hers reached all the way to the ground.

She was fae, and she was the same kind of fae as Rune, but the way she was looking at me…

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