Page 6 of Fires of the Forsaken
Doughy Delights. Pizza. My head pinging off the car window.
Had I been abducted?
My stomach roiled when I moved, but I pushed myself into a sitting position anyway, swallowing rapidly. A high-pitched ringing sounded in my ears as my fuzzy vision took a few seconds to focus.
What in the heck??
This had to be thedeepestpile of shit I’d ever gotten myself into.
I sat in the middle of a field, surrounded by towering pine trees. That alone would have been troubling, since I lived in a congested metro area, far away from wide-open spaces. But this field was also covered in bodies.
And I meancovered.
There had to be thousands of corpses. Some were missing limbs or heads, or…well,everything. Literally, there were random chunks of human scattered about—fingers, toes, gooey pieces of scalp, and…holy crap, that was aneyeball!Definitely an eyeball. And sitting right by my foot.
“Ew, ew, ew!” I squealed and tucked my knees up.
The grass beneath me was soaked with blood. The gently sloping hills of the field were like violent, crimson-stained waves. And, with my mind whirling at a hundred miles an hour, I swore those hills were moving, pushing the bodies closer.
Well, the hills weren’t moving. But the body next to me was.
I screamed when a hand brushed against my arm. A verysmallhand. With teeny fingers and a delicate little wrist.
A fuckingkid.Practically still a toddler.
Blood stained the boy’s hair, and the front of his shirt, thanks to the gaping cut on his forehead. A woman—presumably his mother—lay beside him.
Well, to be clear, herbodylay beside him. Her head was M.I.A.
“Jesus,” I hissed.
The kid whimpered, his fingers closing feebly around the sleeve of my jacket.
“Hey,” I whispered to him, trying to keep the tremor out of my voice. “What happened? Actually, never mind…I…” I swallowed as I stared at the decapitated woman. “I’m gonna—”
The words died in my throat when the rolling sound of galloping hooves echoed behind me.
No.
No freaking way.
That had to be thunder, right?Nothorses.
I glanced over my shoulder.
Fuck.
Those were horses.
A dozen of them, to be exact. All gigantic. All black. Even theriderswore shiny black armor. And, to add the cherry on top, some of them wore dark, spiked helmets.
The group drew to a walk as they approached a gentle hill to my right, facing away from me—thankfuck.Especially since the riders dismounted and started plucking bodies off that hillside. Some corpses got plopped over the back of the saddles. But most got tossed away while the riders made a sound of disgust.
I gulped down a ragged, wheezing breath. Seriously, what was going on here?
Beside me, the little boy cried. He stayed quiet. I had to give him that. But his low whine sounded like a scream as it reverberated across the field.
A rider spun around.
