Page 50 of By the Moonbeam and the Mist
“May I?”
I passed him the pendant as if it would burn me—which it would have, because a second later, violet flames burst from Terrin’s hands, swallowing the pendant in a ball of fire.
“That should do it,” he said rather cheerfully for the occasion.
As soon as his flames died into a glowing orange, Steeler took the pendant—thebrand—from his friend with those tongs and faced me once more, ignoring the way his newest injury still pulsed with blood.
“Time to turn around, Drey.”
“W-What?”
“We can’t let anyone see this mark I’m about to make on you. But I think all that hair of yours will hide it if we put it on the back of your neck, don’t you?”
A flush washed over my chest at the realization that Steeler would actually have totouchme to brand me. That he’d lay a finger on me.
I should kick him in one of his wounds. I should barge out of this cottage and run. I should flee to the nearest village and cry for help.
But I couldn’t.
I couldn’t keep floating around in this constant haze. Couldn’t keep feeling as if the right version of me was somewhere beyond my grasp, forever dancing just out of reach. I’d told Willa I wouldn’t be able to find myself again until Coen Steeler was dead, and that was still true. He’d taken too much of me, kept too muchfromme.
So now I would take from him.
I turned.
Steeler prowled toward me until his body was hovering just behind mine. Large, calloused fingers shifted aside my weight of hair with painstaking gentleness, scraping the nape of my neck nevertheless.
“Just a pinch, little hurricane,” he whispered against my ear.
And as lightning flared outside, as Felicity and the others watched on, he pressed the scorching heat of the pendant to my skin.
CHAPTER
17
Aquick flash of pain seemed to lock its jaws around my throat.
Then I was on my knees as a myriad of different voices slammed into me from everywhere all at once.
Oh, shit.
She fell down.
Is she okay?
Nope, not okay.
This was a bad idea.
Coen’s going to go berserk.
Should we help her up?
Oh no, now she’s screaming.
Sure enough, Iwasscreaming—screaming and slapping my hands over my ears as if both things at once might drown out the voices that were whipping me in the face left and right.
It wasn’t just the sheernumberof voices, but the screeching cacophony their overlapping made in my ears. The way they seemed to crawl and writhe over each other until I couldn’t distinguish my own thoughts from the alien probing of others.
