Page 141 of Eldritch
Zevander had just shuttered his eyes, when the sound of quiet footfalls bled through the door across the room. He snapped his gaze in that direction, watching for the shift in light beneath the crack of the door, hardly discernible with the faint beams of daylight pouring in through the drapes. He’d stayed awake for hours, watching his mate sleep, recalling every visit to Caligorya, every detail restored in his memories.
The rims of his eyes burned as he focused on that door, waiting for a flicker of motion. A sound. All seemed quiet and still, but his instincts told him otherwise.
Someone was there. Even if he couldn’t see them, he could sense their presence.
Aleysia, maybe. It was late enough in the day that she might’ve gotten up to scrounge more food. Though, she didn’t put his mind any more at ease than the idea of a stranger roaming about.
With slow and deliberate movements, he rose from the floor, careful not to make sound, nor wake Maevyth, and dressed quickly, keeping his eyes on the doorknob.
One more glance back at Maevyth assured him of the long, easy rise and fall of her chest, and he crept toward the door.
“Beg for mercy.” General Loyce’s voice brought him to a halt, and he spun around, searching the room for her.
No movement. No indication that any part of the room had been disturbed.
He pinched the bridge of his nose, recalling the last time he’d heard Loyce speak to him and the gouges he’d carved into the floor, too close to Maevyth.
Not real. It’s not real.
“Perhaps I’ll introduce her to my pets.”
That time, the voice sounded like it’d come from the other side of the door—an echo in the corridor.
She isn’t there.
Zevander cracked the door open, anyway, just catching a shadow of movement down the dark passageway, where the light from outside failed to touch. He exited the room, closed the door behind him, and followed after the obscure figure dashing around the corner ahead of him. He hadn’t even gotten a good enough glimpse to know if he was chasing a man or woman.
He paid no attention to the rooms that passed in his periphery, as he kept his eyes on the fleeting glimpses of his quarry, the dark cloak concealing their identity.
“Be sure to kill me.” General Loyce’s voice reverberated like jagged blades across his mind. “For I will pursue her relentlessly. She will be nothing but blood and bones when my pets have their chase.”
Zevander sneered at the threat. The hell she would.
He’d tear through the stinking bowels of hell to keep that from happening. And gods help her when he got his hands onher. He’d defied the fucking gods to make Maevyth his, and he’d damn his own soul before losing her again.
Endless stalking through the temple brought him staring down a familiar corridor. Its gray stone walls, oddly spaced sconces, and a draft cold enough to chill a corpse made it instantly recognizable, albeit a bit hazy as to where he’d seen it before.
A distant dream.
Or nightmare.
Whispered prayers. Cold. Screams. Blood.
Frowning, he turned toward a long stretch lit by sconces that faded to pitch blackness. At either side, iron-barred archways framed deep alcoves that curved into the stone walls. Prison cells. He turned to the one beside him, where phantom images of women and children huddled inside zipped through his thoughts.
Whispered prayers. Screams.
“Come.” General Loyce’s voice echoed from that direction.
“Show yourself,” he demanded.
“You were chosen by the gods, but she was not.”
A spectral chill brushed past his ear, and he instinctively yanked his dagger free, eyes sweeping the shadows. “No need for cowardice.” Zevander remained poised, ready to strike, the thrill of silencing that voice rippling through him in a cold rush. “Show me your face.”
A cloaked figure emerged from the darkness at the opposite end of the corridor and stepped into the flickering light of the sconces.
Theron lifted his head, smiling back at him. “Is that what you think of me? Nothing more than a coward?”
