Cheriour flung a blade into her throat.
If paired with a halfway decent fighter, Cheriour might’ve had a chance. But I was too inexperienced. And the Wraiths had taken the command to“leave me alive”to heart.
“Cheriour!” I yelled as gray-skinned hands closed around my arms, legs, and torso, dragging me backward. They tore the poleaxe from my grasp. “Cheriour!”
The Wraiths clustered around him, blocking him from my line of sight.
I dug my heels into the ground, muscles straining, lungs getting ready to burst as I struggled against the iron grip pulling me back. “Get off me!” I bellowed. “Cheriour!” Why couldn’t I see him?“Cheriour!”
I thought of Moira, dead on the battlefield. My imagination replaced her face with Cheriour’s. I saw his beautiful green eyes staring blankly at the sky.
It hurt. An actual, physical pain lanced my chest as I realized I might never see him again. I’d never get to run my fingers through his curly hair, or—
“Cheriour!” I gasped as he burst through the circle of Wraiths, swinging a short sword. He pivoted, twirled, swirled, stabbed…bled. Like, he bled alot.It ran in rivers down the side of his thigh, soaking his breeches.
“Get off me!” I flailed against the hands holding me. My skin prickled and itched as my blood boiled. “Get off me, you fuck—”
One of them shoved a wad of cloth into my mouth. A wet, putrid cloth that smelled like shit—humanshit. Another hand gripped the end of my braid, ripping my head back.
I watched, horror-struck, as a Wraith plunged a knife into Cheriour’s right shoulder. And then something solid connected with the right side of my head and I passed out.
* * *
First thingI realized when I returned to the land of the living? I was in my birthday suit (aka, buck naked). A chilly breeze brushed against my ass cheeks.
Second thing? The voices.
“Is the fire going yet?”
“Don’t overcook her thighs. Youalwaysovercook them.”
I groaned as I clawed my way back to consciousness. The memories came flooding back: Cheriour…blood…the knife sinking into his shoulder…
A zing of panic shot through my belly.
Wake up! Wakeupwakeupwakeup!
Easier said than done. It felt like someone had kicked a massive hole in the side of my head. So. Much.Pain.It shot down my neck and across my shoulders. Opening my eyes? Ha! I might as well have put a vise around my temple and squeezed until my brain leaked through my nostrils…
Oh, man. Concussions were no fucking joke.
When I finally wrenched my eyelids apart, I stared at a canopy of trees as the dim, late-afternoon sunlight poked out from between the branches. Hands wrapped under my armpits and behind my knees, keeping me suspended in the air.
“No, no, no,” a hoarse voice grunted. “Does that look like it’ll hold ‘er? You need sumfing bigger!”
My head lolled to the side; it was too much energy to keep my neck locked in place.
And…
Aw, fuck!
Cheriour lay curled in a fetal position a few feet away, his back facing me. His clothes were ripped, and his hair matted in a frizzy, blood-stained halo around his head. The toe of his left foot pointed at his ass—a broken ankle. Definitely.
He breathed. Shallowly. But he wasalive.
The fogginess around my brain cleared.
Headache? What headache? I was right as rain. Ihadto be.
