Page 121 of Fires of the Forsaken
“The bitch dumped me,” I mumbled.
“I saw.” Cheriour stretched a hand out, even as he fought to hold his panicked horse steady. “Come on.”
He wasn’t intending for me to hitch a ride with him, was he? There was no room up there!
“Addie!Now!”he bellowed.
And that got my attention. Because in the time I’d known him, he’d never yelled. He’d given commands, sure, but never raised his voice. Not like this.
I stood, fighting the urge to wipe my clothes off—bird guts…yeck—and wrapped my fingers around his. I jumped. He pulled. Pretty sure I accidentally whacked him in the ribs as I shimmied behind his saddle.
Cheriour gave me no time to adjust before he spurred his horse into a gallop. “Eeek!” I squealed. The horse’s rump muscles rolled beneath me. It was slippery and impossible for me to wrap my legs around anything. I had to grab onto Cheriour—giving him a full-on bear hug—to keep myself from sliding backward. “W-what theh-hellhappened to those birds?” I yelled as we thundered through the woods.
“Elion,” Cheriour called back.
“That’s the disease guy, right?” My stomach curdled.
“Yes.” Cheriour clicked his tongue, urging his horse over a downed log.
“Jesus!” I dug my nails into Cheriour’s side. The freaking log was the size of a house!
Okay, not really.
But being on the butt of a horse when it took an enormous leap wasnotfun.
With a grunt, the horse touched down on the other side. My chin whacked Cheriour’s shoulder. Hard.
“Sor—” I started. And then I screamed.
We had jumped headfirst into a trap.
A dozen Wraiths sprang from the bushes.
Cheriour made a noise—might’ve been a muffled“fuck,”—and tried to spin around. But his horse, freshly landed from a big jump, couldn’t get its legs sorted fast enough. And the Wraiths were too close. Too quick.One yanked the reins out of Cheriour’s hands.
“Addie, get down!” Cheriour reached for his knife.
He didn’t need to tell me twice: the jump and sudden stop had knocked me 90% of the way loose. As soon as I let go of his waist, I hit the ground. Landed right on my ass too.
Meanwhile, Cheriour chucked a blade as he swung out of the saddle, and he still landed on his feet.Motherfucker was almost too graceful for his own good.
And the blade he threw? Went right between a Wraith’s eye.
The Wraith holding Cheriour’s horse turned, watched dispassionately as his comrade slid to the ground, and chuckled. “Well done.” His voice was raw. Guttural. Like a barking cough. “But you don’t have enough knives for all of us.”
More Wraiths swarmed into the clearing. There had to be twenty, at least.And most wore those spiked helmets, so Cheriour wasn’t likely to get another headshot in.
Twenty of them. Two of us. Well…more like one-and-a-half, since I sucked at fighting.
“Ugh,” I hissed whenmy back collided with the trunk of the tree we’d just leapt over. I hadn’t even realized I’d been scooting backward.
The Wraith holding Cheriour’s horse (the head honcho of the group) turned his milk-white eyes toward me.
Creepy mofo…
“Look at her.” Head Honcho smacked his gray lips as his gaze hovered hungrily around my midsection.
Cheriour shuffled sideways, arm outstretched, shielding me.
