Page 46 of Fractured Shadows

ChapterTwenty-Three

The castle looms in the distance, coming closer, and yet it still seems so far away. I’m not sure how long the actual distance is, but it must be miles upon miles. Even the thought of covering that distance makes me tired. Sometimes, I walk alongside the others, but when I see my slow pace wearing on them, I climb onto Nero’s back and enjoy the ride. If someone would have told me I’d regularly be riding on the back of a snake man before I was thrown into the Dead Lands, I would have laughed at them, and then I would have dreamed what it would be like. It wouldn’t have even come close to the feeling of his scales between my legs, or the way I can feel his coils pulse beneath me, or how the muscles along his abdomen and back flex as I wrap my arms around them.

Then again, nothing much can come close to Nero.

The men in the Shadow Lands were adequate, I suppose. There were a few nicer ones, but nicer didn’t mean they were prime pickings. They were only the lesser evils in a society meant to force the women to comply. Here, in the Dead Lands, my monsters are more than any human I might have had dalliances with in the Shadow Lands. If for some reason I had to go back, I know nothing would compare to the monsters around me.

Nor did any of the Shadow Land men ever…excite me the way my men do. Just looking at them makes it hard to breathe, and I find myself in a constant state of arousal.

Along the way, we’re attacked by various small creatures. The others make quick work of them, slaughtering any monster that dares to come after us, but I can’t help but notice a pattern as the time goes on. Zetros says that they are drawn to my magic, hungry for it, but as we draw closer to the castle, it doesn’t seem like the monsters are here to take me.

They are here to kill me.

The suspicion solidifies when a cluster of creatures attacks. One moment, we’re moving through the forest, my feet moving to keep up the pace, and the next, an awful screech has me ducking and covering my ears. At first, I thought it might be some creature passing by, but the moment Grimus raises his nose to the wind and stares at the sky he can glimpse through the trees, his face twists.

“Harpy,” he grunts, raising his morning star.

Zetros tenses and moves closer to me. “They rarely travel alone.”

Grim nods. “That’s what I’m afraid of.”

Another screech has me moving closer to Zetros and Nero. Krug watches the sky along with Grim. Bracken seems unconcerned, but even he moves a little bit closer to me.

“Don’t run away,” Zetros instructs. “They are faster than you will ever be.”

“What are they?” I ask, because although the wordharpysounds familiar, I don’t know what it is, only that it’s a monster.

“Half bird, half woman,” Nero murmurs. “Don’t let their singing get to you.”

“Why would it get to me?” I ask, staring up at the sky for the creatures.

Zetros looks down at me. “Their powers only affect humans. We are immune.”

I grimace. “Fantastic.” Another screech hurts my ears, making me flinch and cling to my kraken. “We’re going to be okay though, right?” No one answers. “Right?”

Nero’s eyes meet mine. “Just stay close,parum anguis.”

Worry fills me at his tone, at the way they all move closer to me, as if I’m the weakness here. I suppose I am, even if I have some sort of magic that I can’t yet control. Sure, when my emotions are high, the magic comes easier, but I can’t control it outside of those emotions.

I am the weakness.

When the first one drops from the sky and lands before us, I nearly stumble back in surprise. When Nero said half bird, half woman, I don’t know what I expected. The terrifying creature in front of me isn’t anything I could have imagined. It has the face and body of a woman, but past that, she’s clearly avian. In the place of her arms are great, brown feathered wings that she curls against herself as she rises to stand before us. Her skin matches the color of her feathers, the soft striations in the pattern continuing across her entire body. Her thighs run into a knee that turns birdlike until you find dagger-tipped claws. Feathers run down her back and fall from her tailbone like a tail. Her hair is made up of feathers rather than the strands I know, and when she smiles, her teeth are as sharp as any sword.

But that isn’t what unnerves me the most.

It’s her eyes.

Her features are sharp, as if they have to be in order to mimic a bird, but her eyes are black pools of darkness. I’ve always been a bit afraid of the ravens in the Shadow Lands, but looking at the harpy before me, I now understand why the birds unnerve me. This woman, this monster, is not going to be like my monsters.

Her head tilts to the side as she studies our group, even as more of the monsters drop from the sky, surrounding us. My fingers clutch at those closest to me, tempted to both hide in their midst and get a better look at the leader.

“What do we have here?” she asks in a voice pitched a bit too high to be human. “A group of males just walking through my forest?”

I duck lower, deciding it’s best to not reveal my presence if it hasn’t been made known yet.

“Let us pass, and we’ll let you live,” Grim declares, his chin tilted up.

The harpy laughs. “You think you have power here just because of your lineage, minotaur? This land is our land, gifted to us by the old king—”

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