Voren nods slowly and falls back into silence. I sit on the floor next to the slayer and lean back against the bed, closing my eyes and hoping that when she wakes up, she will be less grumpy and more focused on what needs to be done.
A god can dream.
Chapter 22
Nyssa
The scent of spun sugar wakes me. It’s barely dawn, but light enough for me to see through the gloom.
“Do not move,” Dastian murmurs, crouched next to me, his eyes on something above me.
My natural instinct is to look where he is looking, but this time I gulp and stay still. The scent of sugar is coming from him; he is that close to me.
Something is hovering over me, and it’s not looking to cuddle.
“What is it?” I ask, not really wanting to know.
“Not sure,” Voren murmurs from my other side. “But it’s not benevolent.”
I squeeze my eyes shut. “Just tell me it isn’t Surgeon Scissors.”
“Nope,” Voren replies. “Something much worse.”
“I didn’t think there was much worse than him?”
“Who told you that?” Dastian asks, sounding genuinely surprised.
“I said he was much worse than the face licker, not all the things,” Voren says.
“That’s comforting,” I whisper, my muscles locking up.
Slowly, against every survival instinct screaming at me to roll off the bed and run, I peel my eyes open and turn my head slowly.
I curse myself for being so fucking curious all the fucking time. My petrified groan sticks in my throat, making me want to cough, but I daren’t.
Directly above me, hovering like a spider made of nightmares and old lace, is a woman. Her neck is broken, twisted at an impossible angle, so her face hangs parallel to mine. Her eyes are empty sockets leaking black fluid, and her mouth is stitched shut with thick, rusted wire.
A drop of the black goo falls, landing on the duvet inches from my knee. It hisses, burning a tiny hole through the fabric.
“Get. Rid. Of. It,” I mutter through a jaw clenched so tight, my head starts to pound.
“I’m trying,” Voren grunts, and that tells me everything I need to know about how up shit creek I am.
“Try harder,” I grit out, trying not to stare, but it’s like a traffic accident… you can’t not.
He grunts, and I lose patience as the thing stares down at me, dripping goo and god only knows what else. “What kind of Wraith god are you?”
“The kind that is trying to save you. She doesn’t want to leave. She has unfinished business. Big. Time. It’s personal.”
“What?” I squeak. “I didn’t do anything!”
“She knows who you are, and she isn’t happy.”
“Voren!” I scream as the ghost woman opens her maw, ripping the wire and shrieks.
I close my eyes, my hands over my face, but then it goes quiet, and I gulp, opening my eyes.
She’s gone.
