Page 38 of What Whispers in the Dark
Garrik ripped a dagger from his belt. The sharpened edges filtered in and out of view as he tried to focus, but failed. With a quick shake of his head and an unsteady hand, he threw it at the oak tree not far ahead.
A miss.
Wind danced leaves around his boots, but the way they curled and coiled and twisted seized Garrik’s attention. Their autumn colors appeared like the scales of a serpent in the midnight moonlight. But he could not draw his wavering stare away from how they seemed to slither. How the scrape of their dried edges resembled the caveat rattle of a hollowfang prepared to strike.
Dangerous. Deadly.
A warning?—
That iron should be lodged in your skull,his mind snickered, and any semblance of strength he had remaining was gone. Only, it was not his voice he heard.
Covered in obsidian clothing and endless abyss in her eyes, his serpent cooed as she always had on this day for thirty years,Come now, pet. Everyone deserves to be fucked on their birthday.
For a long, dying heartbeat, his silvers played tricks on him. Misleading his vision as he slammed his eyes shut, only to crack them to hallucinate the shadows between the trees shifting.
Across the darkened forest and trees ahead of his swirling gaze, an onyx dress and silver-snaked heels parted the slithering whorls within them.
Garrik made to stand, to reach for another dagger, but only a shiver of movement answered.
Powerless—utterlypowerless—he growled at that shadow with soft fury, “Do not touch me.” But it only cut as a slurred murmur.
A branch snapped, as if his words were easily ignored, accentuating his flinching heartbeat as calculated, soundless steps ambled toward him.That figure—that infernal creature—knelt by his feet.
The haunting scrape of ombré-colored, daggered nails prowled up his legs.Hands invaded like a poison seeping into his veins.
Then a voice like cold, torturous death drawled amidst the trees.Happy birthday, my pet.
Garrik gritted his teeth and fought to keep his eyes from falling shut.Stay awake. You have to stay awake or she’ll…He pushed the image anywhere it would go on a surge of whatever power remained inside him. Unleashed it from his mind through the trees and around every creeping thing.
It soared through the sky, to the stars, and far beyond. Echoing as if searching for salvation. Wishing. Hoping. Pleading for anything to grab hold and rescue him from the hellstorm he was plummeting into.
Where are you, starsdamnit?
Shadows whirled around his face and hands, desperately pulling at his ice-fevered skin and coaxing him from the bourbon-induced memory. Pleading with him to realize she was only an illusion.
A memory couldn’t really hurt him …
Except it was.
And he could feel the icy sting of her fingertips as his serpent’s hand found his belt and traced the leather, claiming him with every scratch of her claws as she trailed them over the belt loops. Until she made his buckle her new home. Teasing as her other hand roamed his abdomen. Sharpened nails ravenously—painfully—pierced into his scars and produced shades of crimson flowing from the wounds.
As she declared his flesh as her property, her toy, her smile contorted to something serpentine. Then her cold command,Scream for me.
“No.” Garrik’s eyes faded to inky black. Damning. Lethal.His face paled.
Viper-like darkness wrapped around his wrists, forcing his hands behind him and trapping them against the coarse surface of the tree. Chains he was hopeless to break. Filled with stolen dreams and horrifying nightmares that tendriled around him and climbed up, up, up to his neck.
They squeezed, forcing him to extend his neck. His throat working against the magic that claimed him as her nails pressed deeper, ripping beastly gouges down layers of his skin.Strangled gasps clawed from his lungs, begging for air that would not come.
“Release me.” The words laced with authority and warning. It was enough of a threat that the forest became veiled in silence. Enough to cover the terror in his voice and the tremble in his bones.
A shadow moved, prowling around his legs like the gradual wave of his mother’s seas. A taunting murmur. A warning that coiled up his thigh, his hip, and did not stop until it reached his lips.
Powerless, Garrik could not utter another word as that shadow transformed into a thumb, stroking him mollifyingly as that same voice in his nightmares called out again.
You know you cannot order me. Now …
Garrik gasped as she raised her hand and stabbed deep, cracking through the cage around his heart. Stabbing that useless beating thing.
