Page 8 of Stalk the Dark
The bat creature made a gruff sound of assent, and the clang of metal on metal sealed my fate. I slumped to the ground, suddenly spent.
I was trapped in a cell with two dead bodies and a bat man, and I had toxin in my blood. Was it killing me? The pain had stopped. I’d gone numb. Was that a sign? “Why didn’t he just kill me?” It was a rhetorical question, so I jumped when I got an answer.
“Master likes a challenge,” Godor said in a brittle, stilted voice. His eyes glittered in the gloom. Aware, intelligent.
I sat up straighter. “He does?”
He made an eager panting sound and shuffled closer, crouched on his haunches, wings folded tight at his back. “Master likes to play with his human toys.” He tipped his head to the side, the corners of his mouth turning down slightly. “Sometimes toys break.”
No shit. “Yeah, well, I’m no toy.”
A sharp pain lanced through my abdomen, and I cried out, pressing my hand to my belly. “Fuck.”
Godor sniffed and shuffled closer, his beady, crimson gaze going from my face to my torso.
“You lead the wolves away,” Godor said. “You try…save them.”
He’d seen that? “I failed.”
“Why not take Master’s deal?”
“Because I came here to save lives, not sit back and watch people die.”
“Then you will die,” Godor said almost wistfully.
He was right. I was dying. I could feel it. Nyx and Quinn would have told me to take the deal and then tell Ezekiel to shove it later. To double-cross and bendthe truth, and that was all well and good if not bound by an oath of honor, and Ezekiel knew that. Knew that an oath of allegiance to him would be binding. Knew that he’d be free to do as he pleased.
And now I was dying because of it, and when I didn’t check in, the Order would send someone else. I was about to become a statistic, and the damn toxin was making me too numb to even care.
Ice crystallized in my veins, and my teeth began to chatter.
“Not all toys be broken,” Godor said.
“What?”
A gust of air hit my face, sweet and cloying, then darkness dragged me under.
The rumbleof thunder pulled me into consciousness under a star-studded sky. Ice clasped me to the jagged ground.
The rumbling stopped, and the slap of boots approached, but my head felt too heavy to turn.
“Is she dead?” a cool male voice asked.
“I don’t know.” This voice was gruffer, deeper. Warm hands skimmed my cheek, and fingers pressed to my pulse. “Alive.”
“The wolves got to her.”
The same fingers grazed my collar and found the chainaround my neck. My Order emblem. “Fuck,” the gruff voice said. “It’s all right, luv. We’ve got you now.” I was lifted off the ground, head rolling toward a taut chest. The scent of sweet evergreen filled my head. I wanted to see my savior’s face, but my vision was swathed in shadows.
God, he was so warm…
He hugged me to him, moving goodness knows where with me.
“Drink this.” Something cool touched my lips, and icy liquid trickled into my mouth, bitter and awful. I gagged on reflex. “No. Swallow. Youmustswallow.”
His companion snorted softly.
“Seriously?” my savior grumbled.
