Page 119 of Crown of Darkness
“Listen, you furry little asshole,” I whisper. “I don’t know why you’re following me, but this is a stupid idea. We’re deep in a forest crawling with trolls or something worse.” It doesn’t even blink at me. I snap my teeth together. “Trolls will eat you. Go back to where you came from.”
Nothing.
I give up. “Fine. Follow me to your doom. Perhaps they’ll floss their teeth with your tail.”
“Perhaps youshould listen, you feckless idiot,” it says, the words skipping past my ears and imprinting themselves directly in my brain. “I’ve been trying to tell you that you’re going the wrong way for the past mile.”
My mouth falls open, and I clear an inch of steel from my sheath before I catch the mocking gleam in its eyes.
“What did you just say?”
It spoke. I swear it spoke.
The cat scrapes that long pink tongue across its paw.
I’m in Unseelie. Of course it’s not just a cat.
“What are you?”
It ripples through the shadows, and I can barely make out where it begins and they end.
“I came to find you,” it says cryptically. “And I am not a what. I am a who.”
Curse the night.
It’s a grimalkin.
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Chapter Twenty-Four
We make camp near the Hallow, though I’m still not entirely certain how “I” became a “we.” I also seem to be doing all of the work, though the grimalkin assures me he supervises.
“Make a fire. I’m cold,”he says.
“If I make a fire, then every predator in the vicinity is going to smell it.”
The grimalkin gives me an unblinking look. “Do you insult me?”
“How is that an insult?”
“I am the Lord of Shadows.” He pushes to his feet and stalks toward me. “I am the Merciless Night.I am the Teeth That Tear At An Unprotected Throat and the Claws That Slash Like Knives.There are no predators in these parts, for they fled the second they heard me moving through the woods.”
Someone thinks highly of himself.
“There were shadows on the mountainside,” I grind out.
“They will scent me and know to avoid me.I am the Terror With No Mercy.”
“If you’re such a terrifying creature, then why are you followingme?” A thought occurs. “Did she send you to me?”
The last thing I remember is the Mother of Night’s touch across my forehead.
“I have no master or mistress. I came because I Saw you. And I need you.” He sniffs and settles himself near my feet.
“Need me to do what?”
“Do I look like I have hands? Make yourself useful for once and fetch some wood. And then do the thing that makes the fire. We have hours before the Hallow is recharged enough to use, and I intend to spend them in comfort.”
