Page 87 of Lifebound

Dark diamond?

I looked at Rune—this woman had really lost it! Except Rune actually answered her.

“I don’t have a dark diamond on me—which I’m pretty sure you know.”

“But you’re Midnight, and you can just run off home quickly, and get one for me. Right?”

What in the world? “Excuse me, um…what’s a dark diamond?”

“Oh, it’s the most wonderful thing,” Miriam said, bringing her hands together in front of her chest—again, like she had completely forgotten how she’d been choking, struggling to breathe just minutes ago. “And the Midnight Court is full of them. All I need is one, about the size of an apple—that should do it. Justone.”

I looked at Rune, shook my head because I was at a loss for words.

“When?” he asked her instead.

And the woman said, “At your earliest convenience, Sire.”

Sire.

Rune was not asire. Was he?

His eyes were locked on mine, but I doubted he could see me. He was lost in his own thoughts.

A moment later, he nodded. “She needs food first. And a toilet,” he told Miriam.

“Oh, of co?—“

“Mark my words, noxin—if you so much as try to go behind my back in any way, Iwillkill you.”

It was impossible not to believe him now. His every word rang true—even to me.

But Miriam touched her tongue to the roof of her mouth and moved her lips like she was actually chewing something before she said, “Your truth has a very intense taste, Sire.”Color me fucking dumbfounded. “Please, allow me to invite you to my home for breakfast.” She smiled at him, at me. “This way.”

Miriam turned around and led us right to her home at the end of the tree line without another question.

twenty-three

We were on a cliff.

The very edge of a very high cliff.

I looked down at the buildings and the forests and the low hills below, and I realized we were on a mountain. We’d been riding that horse even higher up before Rune threw us off from another edge. Apparently, we landed onto the lowest level of the mountain, before it went straight down to the very bottom for possibly a hundred feet.

The woman hadn’t stopped smiling yet.

“Excuse me, quick question, Mrs. Miriam. Why is your houseat the edge”—I stopped there for a beat to let it sink in, then continued—“of a cliff?” I couldn’t make it more obvious if I painted it for her.

And she said, “Why, because of the view, of course! And, please, call me Miriam.”

The house—which was actually more of a cottage, but she called it a house—was literally about ten feet away from the cliff’s edge. The trees on which Rune and I had fallen started right off the back of the cottage, and the rest of the mountain rose like a giant skyscraper over fifty feet away. More trees on the left, and far to the right was this massive piece of land full of all kinds of plants growing in perfect rows. I had no idea how one could get all those plants I couldn’t even name to grow so close to a cliff, but they were definitely there.

A small table was on the right side of the front doors of the cottage, both open, just like the round windows. That’s where the woman wanted us to sit, and the worst part was that Rune was going for it.

“Come on,” he said. “Let’s eat. We don’t have time.”

What else could I do except follow?

“I will be right back,” the woman’s said, a big smile on her face before she disappeared inside the cottage.

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