Page 53 of Eldritch
“Moon witch,” he whispered, the plea in his voice like an unstitched wound begging to be healed.
She was his. His mate. His undoing.
A goddess of mercy caught in his grasp like a butterfly ensnared by a web.
A scalding burn at his thigh had him looking down to the knife in his hand—one he couldn’t recall having reached for—dripping with blood, and a fresh wound slashed across his skin, right through his trousers. Blood coated his palm as he unclenched it from around the scorpion pendant. It was a wonder he hadn’t crushed the damned thing.
The air in his lungs thickened, and Zevander rose up from the chair, sheathing his dagger. Needing to distance himself. On route to the door, he stuffed the necklace into his pocket and wiped his bloody hand across his leathers.
He had to get away, or risk doing something fucking stupid, like forcing her hands on him. He swung the door open to a dusky sky, his gaze sweeping the yard for the spider creatures. With no sign of them, he trudged across the snow toward the forest.
What better way to calm his desires than to kill something.
Zevander took measured steps, his footfalls noiseless, eyes trained on a white rabbit only a few meters away. The darkness of the surrounding woods made it stand out like a ghostly creature. Careful not to startle it, he quietly unsheathed his blade, each slow movement hardly making a sound. He was determined to offer something better for Maevyth, and rabbit stew sounded like a dream after days of staple foods. Gripping the business end of the blade in his fingers, he lined up his throw, then drew back.
“Mor samanet,” a disembodied voice whispered, and distracted by the sound, Zevander sent the blade hurling past the rabbit, missing his mark as the small creature scampered off.
He swept his gaze across the forest and caught a shadow slipping through a tangle of undergrowth in the distance.
A deer?
What luck, if it was. Zevander hadn’t seen a decent sized animal in the woods since he’d arrived in the mortal lands, but the way the beast tipped its head, as if examining him, left Zevander questioning what he’d seen.
He pressed himself against a nearby tree, peering around the edge of it, where he spied the silhouette of…antlers? He couldn’t tell. It could’ve easily been a gnarl of rotted tree branches that he was eyeing from a distance.
He waited for a flick of its ears, a sniff of the ground, anything that might’ve identified what it was.
Then it moved.
Not with the cautious steps of an animal, but with the quiet stealth of a man.
Perhaps another hunter.
A darkness coiled inside him at the thought of the stranger happening upon the hovel, which wasn’t far off from the woods.
Maevyth.
Zevander swiped up his tossed blade and slinked through the trees, following the shadowy figure deeper into the woods. The surrounding white mist seemed to thicken, but Zevander refused to let him out of his sight. Until he could see only a dark shape that shifted through the vapor. The forest dimmed, as the tightly woven branches blocked out the sky, and in the ever-thickening white fog, he lost sight of his prey.
Zevander paused, clicking his tongue to determine its location.
Nothing registered in his mind. Not the trees that he knew were there, nor the obscure being he’d followed. Only an impenetrable vapor everywhere he looked.
He waited.
Listening.
He began to question if he’d actually seen someone. Perhaps it was simply an animal stalking through the forest. Or nothing at all.
“Mor samanet,” that voice whispered again, closer, and on instinct, Zevander swung out, his blade slicing through the mist.
There was no one.
He could no longer make out the tree trunks nor the sky overhead, as if he were standing in a cloud.
A creeping sensation slithered over the back of his neck, and he turned in time to see the mist parting around a colossal, gnarled tree that loomed over him. From its twisted and decayed trunk gaped a dark hollow that beckoned him for reasons he couldn’t fathom. The knotted labyrinth of roots stood more than half his height.
A tickling at the top of his palm drew his attention to the scorpion there, rousing up from his skin, as it did when he felt threatened. The one at his back stirred, as well.
