Page 34 of Untempered
Slipping out of his hold, the world spun drunkenly around me. Free, I grabbed for the spear from the fallen guard, but it wasn’t where it should’ve been. My fingertips jammed into the wood, jarring my joints.Poison?The bottle. Wade scrabbled for me, and I drove my fist into the side of his knee. I didn’t have the leverage to break it, but he collapsed like a play fort made by children regardless. I was already to the other side of the archway, kicking over the bottle and hearing the glass smash.Not on my watch.
There was something deeply satisfying about hearing things break.
My hand tightened on the door to Audrey’s room, my hand ready to turn the knob, when I heard boots on stone. “Finally,” I heard Wade say.
I ducked my head, but he grabbed my other arm and drove me into the door, twisting my arm up hard behind my back.
He shoved the cloth toward my face, but I turned and sank my teeth into his hand. My lips were still open as he covered my nose this time. The grain of the wood bit into the side of my face, and the world spun, black and pulsing, around me. I struggled, not caring about the pain in my arm. I’d had it dislocated before. There were worse things.
I’d had them before, too. All the worse things. And as I stomped on his booted feet with all the strength I had left and clawed for his eyes, I was falling into darkness. In my chest, my heart beat too fast, terrified.
“There, now,” he murmured in my ear. “There you are.” My skin nearly crawled from my flesh. If I vomited, I’d choke on it. I knew I would. But still, my stomach roiled.
Voices, behind us. The rise and fall of conversation. The booted feet weren’t coming to protect us. I’d never expected them to, but there was no bitter tonic like being right. My arm was released. It flopped uselessly by my side. I was dragged deeper into the darkness but fought to hold on to the sensation in my limbs. The pain, the burning in my chest, the bite of the roughly woven cloth against my mouth, the pinch of nausea. The sensation of his hand moving across my belt and dipping into the pouch at my waist.
The key to Audrey’s room.
Please, have heard.I felt him withdraw it, lifting it to the door I could no longer see with my eyes but could picture in my head. I heard the tiny sounds of metal bumping against metal, loud in my mind.
And, with the last of my strength, I drove my body forward, jarring his hand, bending that key, and, hopefully, making enough noise to wake my charge.
CHAPTERTWELVE
THOMAS
“Then the traitors were given a swift death and burned alongside our enemies.”
~ The Fall of Wolfswail
My hand shook as I splashed water over my face. It ran down my chin, warm by the time it reached my neck, carrying cold sweat as it went. The dream wasn’t as easily cleansed from my mind. My heart still hammering in my chest, I took a deep breath, then another. The house was quiet. The rest of La’Angi was as quiet as it ever was.
No shadows moved in my peripheral vision. But I waited, seconds stretching into eons. I couldn’t shake the feeling there was something wrong. It hadn’t just been the normal nightmares this time. The threat was real. Immediate.
Soft sounds came from the next room, and energy rushed through my body. I straightened away from the basin, grabbing my sword belt on the way out of the room, my feet finding their way in the dark, urgency clawing at my throat and locking my fingers over my weapon’s grip. My chest expanded as I drew air in deeply, bracing myself as I took hold of the sheath of my sword with one hand, better to draw it when it wasn’t at my waist.
Light from the moon slanted in the open shutter on the window. Even as the horror of that filled me—that shutter had been closed when I’d checked on the girls before bed—I saw the cat sitting there, paused in the act of licking a paw to pin me with an arch look.
It had nudged the shutter open. Fury flashed through me, chasing away the fear.
The cat.
Again.
I forced myself to take a deep breath, squeezing my eyes shut. There was no burst of pain, no noise, no movement. The cat hadn’t woken me. I couldn’t blame it. Not for that, at least. For being a constant source of discomfort and annoyance, yes. It was just the dream. Again. And I’d let it get me by the balls. Again.
The dream, and Gerad’s late-night visit. The dream, and my wonderful wife’s treason. The dream, and my role in covering up Rose’s crimes.
As if hearing my internal struggle to be charitable toward it, the cat leapt back down and stepped lightly through the girls to unerringly locate Sandra among her sisters. It curled up in the hollow behind her knees and happy purrs filled the room. I couldn’t help but tense up at the noise. Would it cover approaching feet, the sigh of a blade being unsheathed?
At the foot of the bed, Beatie struggled to pull the blanket up to account for the precious, stolen warmth, her childish face showing deep disapproval and then smoothing a split second later. Whether she had enough covers to be happy or whether they were unnecessary for her comfort, I didn’t know, but I felt the fist of panic release my heart fractionally at the sight of the peaceful scene.My girls.
Quietly, I readied and let myself out into the morning, kissing my Rose gently and leaving the still peaceful house behind me. They were safe, for now. I had to believe it.
Open a gate. That’s what I’d been told to do.
My gut twisted, and the sweat on my body wasn’t due to a nightmare this time.
The familiar cobblestones gave my boots good purchase. There was a light mist, barely discernible, and a hint of purple in the sky. The weight of my shield over my shoulder dragged on me. It was covered by my inside-out tabard. I wasn’t on duty yet. But I was, of course, always. It was all I’d ever known. All I would ever know. I’d thought that was glorious, once. I’d loved that I was a solid link in a bright shield wall.
