Page 105 of Snag
So much so that she’s willing to speak for Bellamy even after she murdered her friend Kris.
That morality, that goodness, is a completely different sort of strength. And perhaps an indication of the power Presh will eventually wield.
Reck shakes his head, straightens, and crosses toward Presh and the sabertooth. He notably stays on the far side of Muta, though, not getting between me and the coiled bushmaster. Muta, not remotely concerned about me, continues to sulk. Or it’s possible he likes the sun-warmed pavement.
“Take care of that, would you, Zaya?” Reck says over his shoulder. “I’ve got to get DeVille back. I’m not interested in having my interior shredded.”
Bellamy tightens her hold on me as Reck moves, as if she thinks he’s just feigning disinterest.
He isn’t.
The athame slides harmlessly against my skin.
“Seriously?” Bellamy mutters, echoing Precious from a moment before. “He really doesn’t give a shit about you. So … that was a hate fuck? When he thought I was you?” She pauses, curling her lip. “Not that the asshole was capable of getting hard enough to actually penetrate.”
“As much as I enjoy having conversations with a knife to my throat,” I say, curling my fingers around Bellamy’s wrist, “let’s not.”
She shudders under my touch. To be perfectly honest, I’m not a fan of the press of her discordant energy either. It raises all the hair on my arms and prickles at the back of my neck.
“You promised!” Presh cries, pulling my attention to her.
The young awry hangs out of the back passenger side of the SUV, glaring in our direction. The sabertooth tiger attempts to climb into the vehicle with her, over her, but she shoves his face away. There is no way he’ll ever fit in the back seat.
Reck appears to be moments away from slaughtering everyone, starting with the ridiculously long-fanged tiger.
“You promised, Bellamy!” Presh shouts, pressing her hands against the base of the sabertooth’s neck, trying to straight-arm him away from her. “You said you needed help!”
“I lied, you utter fucking moron,” Bellamy shouts back, sounding more like a pissed-off elder sister than a deadly dire awry.
“You didn’t!”
“I did!”
“Zaya!” Reck snaps, getting his arm around sabertoothDeVille’s neck and yanking him back. The tiger is double his size, but Reck moves him, then holds him away from Presh, seemingly easily. “I will fucking leave you behind!”
“Are all my siblings this fucking stupid?” Bellamy asks. “The gryphon has a bit of that Greek god thing going on, but that doesn’t mean he knows where to stick his —”
Still holding her wrist, I easily twist out of Bellamy’s hold, pivoting to look at her. Her arm is now extended between us. She blinks, disconcerted. I pluck the dagger from her hand.
Sickly layers of misdeeds and residual from multiple sacrifices coat the blade. Bellamy has cut more than just herself with this dagger, and each time, she’s fortified it with more and more dire-wrought essence.
All of that crumbles under my touch. Until the athame is nothing more than a decorative knickknack.
The dire awry’s disconcertion flicks to the dagger in my hand, shifting from disbelief to sharp anger. “You have no fucking right!”
“I do, actually.”
“Given to you by what fucking —”
“The universe, I suppose.”
She tries to twist her wrist free from my hold. Then, when that doesn’t happen, she yanks down hard, over and over. Dark-tainted essence, born of frustration and a mounting fear, infuses the sticky blood still covering her forearms. Those barely healed cuts well with fresh blood. Potent blood.
But whatever spells she’s trying to manifest fizzle under my touch before she can even direct them to a purpose.
She tries again and again. Blood flows from the gashes she previously made in her arms. Then when all that fails to impact me, previously healed scars on those arms begin toburst open. Blood drips down from the arm still extended between us, pours down along the arm she’s raised toward me in an attempt to quell my simple touch.
Her eyes blaze, all but whited out now. Her lips turn blue against the pallor of her tanned skin.
